Well, in India, when we talk about everyone watching the Booker, everyone reading books, we're talking only of the middle class which is only 30-40 percent of any city. Sixty percent of Mumbai either lives in slums or on the pavement. They have much bigger concerns than reading a book written by someone who has won the Booker Prize.

What I'm saying that in Mumbai you are surrounded by millions of Indians who are just trying to make a living and they remind you of what is important in life and putting you in place: between the struggle to find dignity, to find a good home, to raise a family, to give the children good education. You are just one of millions and millions in that city. I enjoy being that.

I don't mean that Mumbai has its priorities wrong. I enjoy living in Mumbai. It's a place of tremendous energy. One of the great things about it is that I will be walking the streets again, looking at people, talking to people, and hopefully getting inspired to write again. That's what I look forward to doing, right now.

In another interview you said that to a large number of poor people in India only two things are open: either crime or politics. And the latter is not too far away from crime.

What I meant is that if you are a poor person in India today, one thing that has changed is that you now have the same dreams in the middle class. This was not true 10-15 years ago. The poor had different dreams, more modest dreams: just getting slightly better off, having enough to eat, setting up a small home. Now because of the media being everywhere: the internet, advertising, the poor people in India in a city like Mumbai have exactly the same dreams as the middle class and rich people which is becoming entrepreneurs, setting up a big house, going abroad.

Unfortunately, this is a problem because the means of achieving those dreams are open only to a few number of Indians: the middle class. So, the problem we are facing now is that the dreams are the same shared by all, but the infrastructure like education, healthcare, law and order that allows you to get to those dreams, is only open to 40 or 50 percent of the society. This is going to lead to frustration and more crime and also more criminal politics. Because, really, if you are a poor person and you want to just get slightly better off, then you can do that in an honest way but not if you want to be rich. If you are a driver and you want to become rich like a master of a Honda car in your lifetime, there are only two ways out.

In my book I have a scene where Balram (who goes to become from a chauffer to an entrepreneur using a murderous path) is speaking to other drivers. He asks them what will happen to drivers in 10 years from now. They tell him that his son may go to university and he may have a good life. But Balram wants the good life for himself too; he does not want to wait for his son to get there. There are only two ways for a driver making Rs 3,000 a month to become rich in his lifetime -- to enter politics or become a criminal.

Image: Aravind Adiga with his book, The White Tiger
Photograph: Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images

Also read: I highlighted India's brutal injustices: Adiga

Buy Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger on rediff.com

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