The book is addressed to the next generation of Super-Indians, the 'me' generation as I have called them in my book. It's the 20-somethings, going by the fact that India is such a young country. Over 50 per cent of the population is under 30. We are a young nation at 60. Unless I manage to convince the younger generation into reading the book and going with the content, I'm wasting my time because I'm not talking to the converted, I'm talking to those I wish to convert.

Do you think India's younger generation nurtures patriotic feelings for their country?

I feel they are more invested in India than perhaps my generation, which was more confused and disillusioned. We were dealing with middle class angst, we were more deprived. It was a less prosperous India.

Today's young person is growing up in an incredible India. I can sense how positive they are about their own future.

I don't know whether that converts to the patriotism of the old-fashioned kind. I hope it does. But essentially, youth is selfishness and young people are sensing that they're better off in India than they would be elsewhere.

Do you think the younger generation is contributing to making India a superstar?

That has to be seen in the next ten years. We're just at the take-off stage. They've got pretty much everything on a platter -- they have a rich and stable India. They have more spending power, they are better educated, they are more exposed and global in their thinking. There is nothing that should keep them back. It's a good time to be in India now, and youngsters realise that.

You said in your book that sometimes you feel like a tourist in your own country. How far apart are the two Indias -- the rich India and the less well of India? How well do the two Indias really know each other?

India is almost as large as several European countries put together. The differences are also just as radical. We don't speak the same language, don't eat the same food. There is no actual connectivity. What we have is an emotion of Indianness.

Our cultural differences are very vast. How to keep the whole thing together is very challenging, and I think we have met it very well. After 60 years, we still remain a thriving democracy.

The interest lies in the urban Indian young mind, and how that has changed and how that has impacted other segments of society because there's always a trickle down effect.

And you've asked me why I feel a tourist in my own country. In a way, the disconnect between the urban upper middle class and even the elite and rural India is huge. How we manage to meet that gap is going to be a big challenge. There are areas in India that are still hopelessly backward. And this is given the fact that most of the billionaires in the world 10 years from now are going to be from India.

But what about the poor? I'm talking about the urban poor as well. Within your same city, you can be a tourist, because there are pockets in the city that you may never go to. That's a matter of concern.

But we're addressing the fact in our own unique way. And I feel we may do a better job at it than say, China, which would wish its poor away and make them invisible if they possibly can.

Photograph: Befittingly, perhaps, Shobhaa De's book launch at the Taj Mahal Palace in Mumbai on Tuesday saw Bollywood's original superstar Amitabh Bachchan in attendance

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