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I consciously, deliberately make my stories visual, infest them with graphic details. I also like to make the narrative simple, doing a lot of research into the subject matter, whether visiting mother goggle or reading Indian newspapers item by item. There is also a conscious attempt to give my stories a contemporary feel. I don’t know about other authors but you will be surprised to know that I have four different folders with different plots and storylines that I return to from time to time. You may say I am attempting four new books simultaneously. By simultaneously working on four different narratives, I am exploring narrative possibility. Ultimately none of them might come to fruition, and what I finally churn out might be completely different. "There is also a conscious attempt to add a bit of suspense to keep the reader interest alive. For my first novel Q & A, (now better known as Slumdog Millionaire) that you lauded for its refreshing inventive style, I used the format of a quiz show to relive the life of Ram Mohammed Thomas. In Six Suspects I decided to explore the psyche of the characters to show why each one of them was a suspect. The storyline was close to the infamous Jessica Lal murder case. Celebrating his acquittal, Vicky Rai is at his own party. Six of the guests were found to be in possession of a gun: a corrupt bureaucrat; an American tourist infatuated with an Indian actress; a Hindi film sex symbol with a past; an ambitious neta; a Stone Age tribesman and; a dreaming big mobile-phone thief.
The book is a fast-paced page turner. There are moments when one gets the impression that the picturesque feel is deliberate and the author is visualising the effect on the screen as he is penning down the story of Sapna Sinha, the sole bread-earner of the family comprising an ailing mother and a spendthrift younger sister obsessed with participating in reality shows in search of riches and fame, facing odds, including being evicted from the DDA, LIG apartment in West Delhi that her father’s brother had temporarily given them to live – unless she can immediately arrange Rs 2 lakh. As chance would have it she runs into billionaire industrialist Vinay Mohan Acharya at New Delhi’s Hanuman Mandir. He offers her CEOship of her multi-billion dollar company provided she passes seven grilling tests, an offer she outrightly rejects but flips for the bait of Rs 2 lakh, non-returnable advance. Now begins the formidable rigorous seven tests of life, each related to what a girl of her age has to confront while living in Delhi: personal integrity and honesty; sexual harassment, organ trading; child labour; Khap panchayats; corruption and other important and subsidiary characters; Acharya, his brother and secretary; her sister Neha; the sympathetic man-friend Karan who guides her through the rough terrain full of acid tests. The unimaginable twist renders both the reader and the characters spellbound and speechless. The format is realistic and far from preachy. The narrative is bereft of pitfalls of "literary fiction".
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"And now in The
Accidental Apprentice I have a millionaire businessman who zeros
in on on making a 23-year old sales girl the CEO of his company
provided she comes through victorious seven grilling tests (all
related to contemporary India) which she does. I went throw countless
management books, distilling what I thought should be necessary
attributes to reach the top in the corporate sector. On the surface my
stories look quite simple. But if you look at the scaffolding, it is
quite elaborate."