Although a diplomat by profession, "writing is my lifeblood," says writer Shashi Tharoor. His accolades reflect his multi-faceted personality. An established novelist, columnist and non-fiction author, a familiar byline in many of the world?s top publications, 45-year-old Tharoor, besides being a popular writer is, in fact a very successful international civil servant. In January 2001, he was appointed by the Secretary-General as interim head of the Department of Public Information of the United Nations. His books include 'Reasons of State' (1982) a scholarly study of Indian foreign policy; 'The Great Indian Novel' (1989), a political satire, 'The Five-Dollar Smile & Other Stories' (1990); and a second novel, 'Show Business' (1992), which received a front-page accolade from The New York Times Book Review. Show Business has been made into a motion picture titled Bollywood. His latest book, published on the 50th anniversary of India's independence, is India: From Midnight to the Millennium. Excerpts from the interview:

How did the idea of your new novel 'Riot' germinate? Is it based on a real story, namely the Graham Staines murder?

It is based in part on a real story, but not the Staines' murder. I had become increasingly concerned with the communal issues bedevilling our national politics and society in the 1990s, and I wrote extensively about them in my newspaper columns and in my last book, 'India: From Midnight to the Millennium'. This was all in the nature of commentary. As a novelist, though, I sought an interesting way to explore the issue in fiction. Years ago, my old college friend Harsh Mander, an IAS officer, sent me an account he had written of a riot he dealt with as a district magistrate in Madhya Pradesh. I was very moved by the piece and urged him to publish it, and I am very pleased that a collection of Harsh's essays about the 'forgotten people' he has dealt with in his career has just emerged from Penguin under the title 'Unheard Voices'. But his story also sparked me thinking of a riot as a vehicle for a novel about communal hatred. Since I have never managed a riot myself, I asked Harsh for permission to use the story of 'his' riot in my narrative, a request to which he graciously consented. At about the same time, I read a newspaper account of a young white American girl, Amy Biehl, who had been killed by a black mob in violent disturbances in South Africa. The two images stayed and merged in my mind, and 'Riot' was born. I began writing it in December 1996, immediately after completing 'India: From Midnight to the Millennium'. But in view of the various demands on my time with my work at the United Nations, I could only complete it four years later, around Christmas/New Year 2000. In between, whole months went by during which I was unable to touch the novel.

Due to your demanding job at the UN do you feel you let the author in you play the second fiddle?

Well, I have pursued a writing career. But I have also pursued a United Nations career. I see myself as a human being with a number of responses to the world, some of which I manifest in my writing, some in my UN work (for refugees, in peace-keeping, in the Secretary-General's office and in communications). I think both writing and the UN are essential for my sanity: if I had given up either one, a part of my psyche would have withered on the vine. Sometimes I do wonder what I would have done if I had had the luxury of writing full time, but I don't allow myself any regrets.

What is it that you miss the most about India?

When I think of India, I think of steaming breakfast idlis and pungent coconut chutney, of lissom women in saris the colours of paradise, of the throngs of working men pouring from a brown-and-ochre train; I hear the roar of the white-specked blue ocean lapping up at sandy beaches, the clear calm stillness of the snow-peaks, the cacophony of the crowds at a cricket match; I imagine the sun shining off the marble and stone of our greatest monuments, the rain falling vigorous and life-renewing upon the drying plains, the breeze stirring the green stalks of the paddy fields in my village. I remember how, each time that I come home, I stand in the sun and feel myself whole again in my own skin. Fundamentally, my formative years, from the ages of 3 to 19, were spent growing up in India. India shaped my mind, anchored my identity, influenced my beliefs, and made me who I am. India matters immensely to me, and in all my work, I would like to matter to India.

Is there a tendency to recognise Indian writers only once they have achieved success abroad? If so, how can this trend be stopped?

I am astonished that this still seems to be the case, but it seems to be true. Quite apart from the superstardom that has struck a Jhumpa Lahiri, for instance, after just one excellent volume of short stories, I will never forget the story of what happened to Shashi Deshpande a few years ago. After receiving rather modest attention in the Indian press for years, she had a novel turned down by her usual Indian publisher and found a home for it instead with a British feminist house. The mere fact of the British publication led to glowing reviews and major interviews in the Indian press, which she might never have got if her novel had been accepted in India in the first place! My point is that, of course, she should have been recognised here for what she had already shared with the Indian public. How will things change? First, by more and better books being published in India. I was the first writer to insist on separate Indian publication, by withdrawing the 'territory' of India from the list of countries where the British edition of 'The Great Indian Novel' could be sold. This is now a widespread practice. The success and high quality of a number of Indian publishing houses should also enhance the seriousness with which they are treated. But at the end of the day, it is a question of attitude _ of our mentality as Indians _ and only we can change that ourselves.

Indian writing in English has now come of age. Ever since Arundhati Roy won the Booker, the majority of Indian writers enjoying international success have been those living abroad. Do you think staying abroad has shaped your writing on India and Indian themes?

Though I'm a great fan of Arundhati's, I don't think your assumption is correct. R K Narayan, Manohar Malgaonkar and Anita Desai all did extremely well internationally while still living in India. I think a writer really lives inside his head and on the page, and geography is merely a circumstance. As for me, my expatriation is linked to my work for the United Nations, which at different times has placed me in Europe, in South-East Asia and now in the United States. I have carried my Indian identity and passport with me to each of these places, and I have not made that leap of the imagination that emigration entails. Of course, staying abroad entails the risk of losing touch with the reality one is writing about, so it cannot be said to 'help' in writing about India, but none of those who criticise expatriate writers can point to any egregious errors in my books that derive from my expatriation, so I guess it hasn't hurt either.

What sort of reaction do you usually see from the readers to your books? Are you anticipating any specific reactions to 'Riot'?

I get all sorts of reactions, and many _ both letters and personal encounters _ have been deeply gratifying. My fiction sometimes appeals in different ways to Americans and to Indians, but the whole point about literature, surely, is that while it rests on specificities of time and place, it must appeal to readers beyond those specifics. 'The Great Indian Novel', as a reinvention of the Mahabharata, inevitably reaches Indians in a way that most foreigners will not fully appreciate, but some of the most erudite appreciations of the book have in fact come from Indophiles abroad. 'Show Business' did extremely well with American reviewers and readers, who enjoyed the way I tried to portray the lives and stories of Bollywood as a metaphor for Indian society, but some Indian readers and critics could not look beyond the cinematic parody. With 'Riot', for the first time, I have major non-Indian characters, and that is bound to affect the way the book is perceived both in America and in India.

Do you have another book planned?

Alas, no! Finishing a book in these circumstances is such an arduous business that once it is done one just wallows in relief. In any case, there are still things to be done when a novel is published _ proofs to be corrected, interviews to be given.