Dasgupta proved quite adept at keeping the conversation interesting, artfully moulding it in order to touch a maximum number of topics.
One major component of the discussion centred on travel as a vehicle to develop characters and shape plots.
Dasgupta -- his own collection of stories are a sort of modern-day Canterbury Tales -- argued that travel remains a powerful, pertinent tool for a novelist writing about India.
He said, "When I look at India today, I see an incredibly mobile society. There is the huge migrant worker population in the Gulf; and many IT and medical professionals go to the United States for [increased] opportunity [it offers]. Many young Indian students aspire to study abroad. For these people, travel is very much a central part of life. The author writing about India must confront this reality."
Desai agreed, for the most part, but added, "I believe, in the age of airplanes and same-day trips, some of the magic and lustre of travel has been reduced. The voyages by sea, the act of travel itself, seemed to mean more in those days. To travel then was to signify a life change, but today it can be merely a life phase."
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