When Salman Rushdie came calling...

I had more questions for Cyrus Mistry.

Interestingly, famous Parsi writers like Rohinton Mistry and Ardashir Vakil now live abroad, but started out writing about Mumbai...

I don't consider myself a Parsi writer, in that sense. It has a lead Parsi character and some related themes, and a careless reading would lead a reviewer to make comparisons with Rohinton's work, but it's not.

Does your being a famous writer's brother affect the way reviewers assess your work?

I don't know. One reviewer wrote 'If you like Rohinton Mistry's work, you will like Cyrus Mistry's too'. But that pre-occupation with Parsis takes on a slightly exotic flavour because Rohinton is based in Canada and is talking about a small community here. My novel is about India. Maybe I'm flattering myself, but that's how I see it.

What about cinema? Do you intend to dabble in it some more?

I have worked with film for a fairly long time, but have never found it satisfying. I wrote two scripts but found that the director is so much in control that there's a sense of loss, as far as your writing is concerned. There was also a Gujarati film called Percy, based on a story I had written, but I have stopped working with film.

Image: Rana Dasgupta, English Fiction award nominee for Tokyo Cancelled.