I don’t think about it. If you do, it affects how you write and live.
Born in Kenya, raised in Tanzania, settled in Canada—how Indian are you?
My ancestry is Gujarati, and from my first visit in ’93, I realised India was always a part of me.
Is it any different now?
This violence is not part of the tradition I come from. I notice that each time I come to India, there’s a tendency to put people in a box.
In what way?
A friend recently introduced me as ‘a good Muslim friend’. I was deeply offended.
You don’t see yourself as a Muslim?
I don’t see myself as a Muslim or Hindu or anything else, but to be told you are this or that, and handed the baggage that goes with it.
But you feel part of the Khoja tradition?
Yes, culturally my roots are in the Khoja tradition. I grew up hearing bhajans about Brahma, Saraswati, Harishchandra, Yudhishtira in the Khano prayerhouse.
Were the Gujarat riots a starting point?
My book was conceived before the riots, but the riots gave me a frame for the story of how a dargah set up by pirs escaping from Mongol brutality was eventually destroyed.
What’s your next book about?
It’s a travel memoir, more about me in India than India itself.
Any resemblance to Naipaul’s travelogues on India?
Naipaul came once, wrote, and it was a judgement. I don’t write as an outsider.
You’re an Indian film buff. Which film did you see recently?
My wife, has already seen Chak De India, so I’ll have to see it on DVD when I get home.
