How did you conceive ofu00a0the book?
I didn’t think of it as a book, at all. I was working on some new fiction and I was fair way into it but got a bit stuck. Usually at times like this I read, watch movies, listen to music and it fixes itself and I get the answer. This time, for some strange reason, I thought I would write an essay in 20-odd pages and publish it in a glossy magazine. The premise is the anthropology of computer programming, which I have been thinking about for years. Then, I started writing it and it just sort of exploded in all kinds of directions. I had no idea that it was going to lead me to 9th century Indian literary theory — tantriks and all of that.

Vikram Chandra took almost two years to write this title, that will educate you in Boolean algebra and rasa theory, simultaneously. Pic/Rane Ashish