24.07.2026

A: You are the writer. Which is easier to write, the dialogue or the story?

S: When you have as much experience and knowledge about writing as I do, then you will be equally adept in all fields. What is the difference? I have been a poet, a journalist, a writer of fiction, a scholar and researcher. There is no difference.

A: Why then do people say that there is a difference?

S: This Western culture believes in the discrete, in disciplines and categories. I am Indian. I do not.

A: It comes down to a question of being Indian?

S: Indian thought conspires in the individual Indian to produce everything.

A: You truly believe that you are a Renaissance man?

S: Greater than the Renaissance man. An Indian man.

A: Give me then a story.

S: A scientist found that the best way to get into space was to create a giant bee. After all, the bees defy gravity, so we are told. He invested in quite a few hives and moved to Cornwall whose weather was the most appropriate and conducive. He bred bees. Years passed. However, the biggest bee he was able to develop only got to the size of a tennis ball. Nature had put her foot down. There was to be no bee line into space.

A: Amazing. You made that up just on the spot?

S: It does not take time. I have a million stories on my mind. I can do it whenever.

A: Where did you find this ability?

S: One that has a fervent imagination does not need to work on an imagination. In any case, I told a bed time story every night to my nephews. The most demanding audience. That is from where I have honed my craft.

A: And a dialogue?

S: We have been having a dialogue just now. That is the Indian way. We do everything at once. And it all gets done to a superlative and supreme degree.