Maybe clothes are a form of creative expression for me. An outlet. Because I don't get to express myself creatively through my official duties.
People sometimes think of 'queen' as a title that's shrouded with protocol and formality, and for that reason sometimes people are not easily saying what they want to say. They're reluctant to express their opinions, and I kind of find that frustrating because I want to know what people really, really think.
The protocol things, the officialdom, are part of my work. But it doesn't take more than 20 percent of my time. The majority of my time I spend on issues that I care about.
The United States was an innocent victim after September 11. It had never attacked or occupied Afghanistan. So therefore it had no choice but to go after the aggressors.
I think that an objective reader may see how in the society to which I was exposed as a black youth here in America, for me to wind up in a prison was really just about inevitable. It happens to so many thousands of black youth.
I was going through the hardest thing, also the greatest thing, for any human being to do; to accept that which is already within you, and around you.
I grew up, as many Indians do, in an archipelago of tongues. My maternal grandfather, who was a surgeon in the city of Madras, was fluent in at least four languages and used each of them daily.
In my family, as in most middle-class Indian families I knew when I was growing up, science and mathematics were held in awe.
Like most of my friends in school, I was a member of multiple circulating libraries; and all of us, to begin with, borrowed and read the same things.
I was the first businessman to say, 'You should give tax benefit to only small companies. You should say your profits are exempt to a limit of Rs. 50 crore or so, but beyond that, you should pay taxes.' I have been arguing with successive finance ministers on this.
Everything in Bela's life has been a reaction. I am who I am, she would say, I live as I do because of you.
For years, I sort of would try to write a story that somehow fit the title. And I don't think it happened for maybe another four years that I actually thought of a story, the plot of a story that corresponded to that phrase.
I have two young children, and I will say that motherhood is its own peak, just like in the process of writing: one climbs and is continuously moving with each book. Becoming a mother is the greatest connection I've ever felt to being spiritual.
I think if you speak to any creative person, there's something so powerful - so intoxicating, if you will - about discovering another voice, another instrument, another way of looking at things, another way of perceiving things.
I think, like any artist or any writer, I just want to have that pure freedom of expression and of thought - the freedom to explore and move in unexpected ways.
If I stop to think about fans, or bestselling, or not bestselling, or good reviews, or not-good reviews, it just becomes too much. It's like staring at the mirror all day.
Connect with
Login with Facebook