mid-day: Your story switches between different timelines, which is fascinating. What prompted you to take this route?
Armin Wandrewala: Right from the start of writing this novel, I knew it would not evolve in a linear narrative, but that I would switch timelines, and perhaps bring it to a circuitous close, which did happen. I did not initially plan to end where I began but that happened naturally. I suppose I wanted to introduce the main characters right at the beginning: hence the novel begins with Alamai, then immediately introduces Almitra and Aabad, then goes back and forth, over the next hundred years. It’s why the chapters are ‘dated’, rather than ‘numbered’. I thought this would make for interesting reading, containing an element of mystery, rather than a linear unfolding. Maintaining a track of timelines wasn’t easy; my legal training helped in that context. I started with the beginning and teased myself to think up the end; the middle filled itself out.

A statue of Mancherji Joshi in Dadar Parsee Colony (the area close to the family home ‘Meherabad’). Pics Courtesy/Wikimedia Commons