It is tough being a writer of crime fiction in India. Especially if you happen to write in English.

I have actually had other writers – of more ‘literary’ fiction, generally – look at me with faintly raised eyebrows, as if wondering if I’ll be able to respond intelligently, should they condescend to address a few sentences to me. I’ve had readers ask, “Since you’ve done so much research, why don’t you use it to write something constructive? Like a book on what India might have been like if Dara Shukoh, instead of Aurangzeb, had succeeded Shahjahan?”

(That reader actually added that crime fiction, after all, was a ‘hobby’).

So it is a very refreshing change to be part of something that doesn’t tolerate crime fiction, it celebrates it.

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