(AT THIS POINT THE RECORDING WAS STOPPED BUT THE GUEST WAS NOT INFORMED OF THE SAME.)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book is owed to several people at several stages in my life including whoever let me write my first piece of prose in school. (An Autobiography of a Cardigan.)

So in case you think I should have mentioned your name and I haven’t, forgive. Send me an email and I’ll include it in the next book.

The ones I remember, and am deeply grateful to include Nilanjana Roy (alas), Rashmi Bansal, Shankar Radhakrishnan, Priya Ramani, Gautam Raja (THANK YOU), Gautam Chandrasekharan, Shashank Khare, Surjo Sinha, Rajjat Gulati, Chetna Gulati, Varun Kapoor, Nino, Mini, Madhusudhan Nagaraja, Nishtha Navandar, Ravi Singhvi, Shruti Thakkar, Nikesh Agarwal and Abhijit Nath. Sugandha kept me alive on cups of tea and roti subji. IIM Ahmedabad and Raghuram Rajan gave me the cojones to try a life of writing. REC Trichy first taught me writing, rewriting and editing for an audience.

I also thank William Dalrymple and his excellent From the Holy Mountain for making me want to take the leap when I did.

I am eternally indebted to my family and their patience.

I cannot thank enough Avanija Sundaramurti and the team at Penguin for their faith, and Mita Kapur for her enthusiasm and representation.

I am thankful for all the hare-brained, crazy, psychotic, incompetent, stupid, hair-pulling-inducing but entirely unforgettable people I have worked with in offices over the years. You know who you are.

But most of all, over everybody else, I am entirely and utterly indebted to the hundreds and thousands of regulars readers of Domain Maximus who, through thick and thin, stood by me and made me the writer that I am.