When you write books that are based on research then it’s probable that somewhere along the way you are picking up information that is out there, says author Ashwin Sanghi talking about how sometimes even in fictional books there are incidents or instances that feel eerily similar to real-life events.
"I saw that happening when I wrote The Rozabal Line, I predicted, part of my story was an attack happening in Mumbai with a bunch of Pakistani terrorists arriving on a boat and landing on the shores of Mumbai. That was kind of eerie. It was something that I never wanted to predict in my wildest dreams," he added.
While speaking about his new book The Vault of Vishnu at Dakshin Literary Festival 2020, Ashwin said, "I never set out to make a prediction, there wasn’t an effort in that regard and then suddenly on Twitter and Facebook, people began sending me messages saying, 'Do you realise that now fiction seems to be playing out as fact? Where you have shown to be superhumans at the Indo-China border now there are news reports that the Chinese are actually sending their army'. For a minute I was like, 'Oh my God'. I have always maintained that fact is stranger than fiction and I am not surprised."
Responding to senior journalist and author Kaveere Bamzai, he spoke of how history has different versions and people should read all the versions, "We should not restrict the version of events but to allow multiple versions to exist. I will generally have a viewpoint but will read all the alternative viewpoints. Even when we are teaching History to students in this country, let’s give them the option to choose what they want to believe as history is multi-dimensional. It's not 'what you see is what you get'."