The Literary Mirror

Why return to Lakhani Chawl for a second collection?

I wasn't finished with the building. That sounds strange to say about a place I invented, but once you've mapped a staircase and a water tank and decided who lives on which floor, you start hearing more stories than you can fit in one book.

Several stories end right as the monsoon starts. Was that planned from the beginning?

Not from the very beginning, no — it was a coincidence in the first two stories I wrote, and then I noticed it and decided to make it a rule for myself. Rules like that are useful. They stop you from over-explaining an ending.

Is there a tenth Lakhani Chawl story you cut from this book?

There's a whole one about the building's watchman that I couldn't get right in under thirty pages, which is too long for this collection. It might become something else — a novella, maybe. I'm not done with him yet either.