Aravind Adiga

What gave you the idea to write about cricket?
Today, in any Indian city, thousands of young cricketers are desperate to make it into the national cricket team or a major IPL team. From the time they are four or five years old, their whole life is nothing but cricket. They are told they must make the cut on selection day, or else there is no future for them and their families. In an unlikely way, their one-track upbringing was similar to my own. In the 1980s, when my brother and I were growing up in Mangalore, we were told every day that we had to do exceptionally well in our studies. We had to get a 100 percent, so we would get a 'merit seat' in engineering or medicine. Sports, friends, cinema — nothing else mattered. Both of us made the cut on our own selection day. In 1985, he stood second in Karnataka in the state-wide SSLC exam, and, five years later, I stood first. But when I look back on it, it seems like my childhood was robbed from me. In my own way, I went through a version of what Manju and Radha [two brothers who are central characters in the book] do.