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" Getting some distance allowed me to develop a hunger for India and to come back and explore it in a way I wouldn't have had I been living here. And that probably made me more political as well. "

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" I met a number of young, striving, enterprising people in cities like Aligarh and Hubli. But the mental landscape of these towns is out of sync with their reality. Many of these towns are hellholes. "

Karan Mahajan

People

Young

Reality

" Asian-Americans are still regarded as 'other' by many of their fellow-citizens. "

" I think that a lot of terrorists have been middle class and, more surprisingly, many of them have been people who were not directly affected by the things they're angry about. "

" In some ways, the best novel about terrorism, though it's not a novel, is 'The Looming Tower' by Lawrence Wright or 'Perfect Soldiers' by Terry McDermott. "

" When I lived in Delhi, it was burdened with so many futures - fast roads, malls, flyovers - that one felt almost obliged to be hopeful. Now that hope has diminished, you can feel the city going into a frenzy to reinvent itself. I miss living there. "

" There is not one New York but thousands - mixed-up conurbations and microclimates with their own internal logics and charms, dreams and juxtapositions, faces and tongues. "

" I had a thick accent, and people didn't understand me, and I was ashamed, and I fumbled. I radiated an uncertain energy; sometimes baristas sensed this and wouldn't try to talk to me, and then an insecure voice in my head would cry, 'He's racist!' "

" Literature has become too psychological. "

" The Hindu nationalists see a religion near perfection save for the tampering of Muslims and Christians. So they fall upon these groups, rather than try to reform their own practices by drawing on India's sophisticated philosophical traditions. "

" By 2013, at the age of 29, I was failing. I had left two good jobs in succession to complete a novel I'd been tooling around with since 2009, had enrolled in a graduate programme in Texas, as far away from home as possible, to finish it - and yet: what did I have to show for it after five years of work? "

" American life is based on a reassurance that we like one another but won't violate one another's privacies. This makes it a land of small talk. "

" I think there is a chance that Indian writers in America will start producing very interesting books in the years to come. "

" If Asian America exists, it is because of systemic racism. "

" I'm good at description and imparting flow to a story, but I don't necessarily understand the value of long scenes. "

" I remember returning to Bangalore after a few months of travel and seeing it as a first-world city, like New York or San Francisco. This may be obvious to some people, but I grew up in Delhi, and I had no experience of how someone from a 'Tier 2' city may view a 'Tier 1' city. You really do emigrate between worlds when you come from those towns. "

" To live in New York is to see the world as it is to come. "

" Muslims remain the most convenient target for prejudice in a city like Delhi, which is far more ghettoized than Bombay or Bangalore, for example. "

Karan Mahajan

Target

" People love talking about the banality of evil and the fact that ordinary people do bad things. I actually want to stay away from that. "

" I immigrated to the United States in 2001 for college. "

" American policies toward Asians reached a nadir in 1924, with the implementation of a law that sought 'to preserve the idea of American homogeneity' and denied admission to the country to most non-whites. Immigration from Asia was banned completely, with the establishment of an 'Asiatic Barred Zone.' "

" There's a hustling, but also a self-centred vibe you can get from people in Delhi. "

" Terrorists are as torn as anyone else. "

" When more Chinese started coming after the Gold Rush, employed on large projects like the Pacific Railroad, anti-Chinese sentiment became shrill. "

Karan Mahajan

Started

Railroad

" In the five months I wrote the final draft of 'The Association of Small Bombs,' I never fell out of the book. The world was real to me: plausible and powerful. "

Karan Mahajan

World

Book

" I tend to see my characters from inside and outside at once; this is a technique I use to retain a slight distance. It means my characters can act in unexpected ways on two axes: physical and mental. It isn't just, 'I thought this and then I did this,' which is the technique of the modern psychological novel. "

" Apparently, the city of Delhi is a 'character' in my novels. I'd argue that it's a ... city... in my novels. "

" The thing about a failure is that it is possible to deny it forever. "

" After a post-Bill Berry softening with albums like 'Up' and 'Reveal,' R.E.M. seems to be toughening up again; on the strength of the first single, 'Discoverer,' the band's new record looks to continue with the same muscular rock and roll that defined its last album, 'Accelerate.' "

" Novelists get to say plenty in their massive tomes; rock singers only get four-minute songs with two verses and a chorus' worth of lyrics, and so there's a real pleasure in accessing the intelligence behind the music, even if it doesn't qualify as 'great literature.' "

" I see flaws as a kind of beauty. "