When I actually started writing the novel, I was in Bhopal living alone in a large bungalow overlooking the lake. I made a synopsis of all the chapters before getting down to writing. It was when I started writing the chapters that I discovered, to my dismay, that instead of my dictating to my characters how they should behave and what they should say in a particular situation, they began to evolve independent personalities of their own and dictate their actions and speeches to me. Most writers agree that they have had similar experiences of characters created by them. However, I persisted as best as I could and finished the draft of my novel. I sent it as an entry to the Grove Press competition for the best work of fiction from India. An American friend, Mrs Tatty Bell, wife of a British diplomat, who typed the manuscript for me told me bluntly one day: ‘It’s no good. It won’t get you anywhere.’ A few months later, when I was with UNESCO in Paris, came an announcement that Mano Majra had won the award. It was published under this title in the United States and the Commonwealth rights were sold to Chatto and Windus of London. It was my hunch that if the title was changed to Train to Pakistan, it would sell better. And so it did. It was published in most European and Indian languages. It has been reprinted over thirty times. And goes on selling.

The success of Train to Pakistan emboldened me to try my hand at a second novel. All said and done, Train to Pakistan was more a documentary than a novel. This time it would be a simple story of a close-knit family divided by conflicting political loyalties. I chose to set it around the time when the ‘Quit India’ movement was launched by Mahatma Gandhi during World War II. The main characters were the father who after years of loyal service to the British Raj, expected to be honoured with a title in the King’s Birthday Honours list and his young son who, undetected by anyone in the family, had joined a band of terrorists to disrupt arms supplies traffic on road and rail, and perhaps kill an Englishman or two. The story was built around my own family. I located it in Amritsar. This too was published in the States, England and India. I gave it the title (I have a fetish for giving titles to my books after I have written the last word) I Shall Not Hear the Nightingale. I think it is a better novel than Train to Pakistan. Not many people agree with me. It did not do as well as my first novel. Now you have the two together. I leave the judgement to you.