By the time I finish the novel it has almost nothing similar to what I had started with. Its around you all the time, and you need to transform it to something else. In fiction, reality does not exist. The writing itself is born out of imagined reality. I get my themes from real life and enrich it with my imagination.
Some autobiographical elements are always there.
But your novels and stories are based on the contemporary society and its problems. For instance, the growing problems arising out of the spread of tourism have deeply concerned me. Kerala does not have any villages left any longer. Everything has been urbanized and turned into small towns. I have been brought up in Mahe, a former French territory where the process of urbanization started long ago.