I had absolutely no idea, as far as the breadth of the story is concerned. I just began with an image -- of police officer Sartaj Singh sitting outside a strange house, talking to the gangster Ganesh Gaitonde. At that point, I thought it would be more or less within the format of a thriller-mystery. But, around 100 manuscript pages in, it became pretty clear that the pace was different. Once I started thinking about it and talking to people, there were connections leading from one thing to the next that made it bigger in all kinds of ways (laughs).

But, generally, when I start writing, I have an image from which I begin and some sense of the end -- not necessarily the logistics, but where it's going. From there, I simply follow the characters. I write each chapter in a separate word processing file and, until the end, I hadn't put it all together. Sacred Games was a surprise to my wife and I when we looked at the finished manuscript.

I suppose it helps to have a wife (Melanie Abrams) who is also a writer. Do you bounce ideas off each other?

All the time. She was my first reader, after I got the novel into workable shape that an outsider could understand.

What kind of toll does a work like this take, physically or otherwise? Do you lose all semblance of a social life?

Not me. After putting in a full day of work, I actually like being around people. I go out a lot, with friends in India and the US. I like parties in Mumbai because they are strange and interesting. The funny thing is, whenever I came back to India, people would ask how the novel was doing, and I would keep replying that I was halfway through (laughs).

There is a tremendous sense of relief, obviously, that it's done.

There is. It feels quite surreal, actually, sitting here talking to you. I've lived with this novel inside me for so long, that to see it as a physical object is weird.

Read an exclusive extract from Sacred Games: Tales from the Underworld

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