STRIKING GOLD: Vikas Swarup; (below) a still from the film Slumdog Millionaire

Q: Well, Vikas, how do you feel now that you are a literary superstar? How many interviews have you given?

A: I am exhausted, I’ve had no sleep. I have done 35 interviews in two days in London and a photo shoot with The Guardian. I had a wonderful session at the Nehru Centre where so many writers such as Patrick French came. I am now on my way to South Africa. Then Delhi for a couple of days where it is going to be hectic and then Bombay for more interviews.

Q: Did you ever think Slumdog Millionaire, based on Q&A, was going to be so big?

A: Never.

Q: We have been friends since London where you served as a diplomat at the Indian High Commission. I used to come to your house practically once a month for dinner. You always proudly showed me the paintings that were being done by (your artist wife) Aparna, but you never once told me you were writing a book.

A: For a while even my wife didn’t know. She was on holiday in Delhi and she called me up in London and said, “When are you coming?” I said, “When I finish my book.” She said, “What book?”

Q: When did you write Q&A?

A: In the three months between July and September, 2003.

Q. What’s the genesis of the book?

A: The idea was to be off beat. I did not want to write a book about magic realism, about talking monkeys.

Q: What’s different about the book, I think, is here you have a boy from the Bombay slums with no formal education, yet he knows the answers to complicated questions because they connect with things that have happened in his life.

A: You are absolutely right. That is what makes the film work.

Q: That’s what I mean, how did you get the idea?

A: It was the time when Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? was big on television, and people were talking about Kaun Banega Crorepati. The context was, there was a scandal about an English army major who was caught cheating and some Cambridge professor who was supposed to be helping him. This got me thinking, ‘Why not have someone who would be accused of cheating when he wasn’t cheating?’ And if someone could win a million pounds in England, why not just a million rupees in India but much more? I thought, ‘Let me write something with a quiz show.’

Q: Your novel is called Q&A. The film is called Slumdog Millionaire, an expression unknown in India. Now your book is going to be reissued and renamed Slumdog Millionaire. You must have mixed feeling about that.

A: I do have mixed feelings but there is not much I can do. I am told by the commercial people that this is the way forward. But at the Golden Globes, Simon Beaufoy (winner for Best Screenplay) did mention the book. Danny Boyle (winner as Best Director) didn’t.

Q: I suppose the new book cover will be a still from the film?

A: Yes, it has a picture of Dev Patel and Freida Pinto (who play Jamal Malik and his girlfriend, Latika, in the movie). But the book is now being translated into 36 languages.

Q: Did you ever think this was going to happen? Do you feel like Dr Frankenstein who has created a monster?

A: (Laughs) I had no idea this was going to happen. I thought the novel might do moderately well in India because it has an Indian story. I never imagined it would be a global phenomenon.

Q: The name of your main protagonist has been changed to Jamal Malik in the movie.

A: I called him Ram Mohammed Thomas.

Q: Like Amar Akbar Antony!

A: It was entirely deliberate. Perhaps there wasn’t room in the film for his back story. In our country our name tells us so much about an individual. With Ram, Hindus might identify with him, the Muslims with Mohammed, Christians with Thomas. Ram Mohammed Thomas may not be educated but he has the wisdom of the streets. But if I had written a story only about him, no one would have been interested. It is his experiences, which enables him to answer questions on the quiz show, that anyone in the world would be able to identify with.

Q: Did you have problems finding a publisher? I heard you surfed the Net looking for an agent?

A: Well, I found an agent. Once the manuscript was shown to Doubleday, they said, ‘Can you take it off the table? Please don’t show it to anyone else.’

Q: Did you write the book with a film in mind?

A: Not in the least.

Q: I have seen Slumdog Millionaire twice, the first time at the London Film Festival. When did you see it for the first time?

A: I also saw it for the first time at the London Film Festival.

Q: It must have been strange seeing the characters you had created, your baby as it were, come to life on screen.

A: Absolutely, they were changed a bit, but they were my characters. It felt good.

Q: I have read all sorts of things, that Bollywood turned down your book, that Danny Boyle had Shah Rukh in mind for the role of the quiz master, that he kept Danny Boyle waiting, so he walked out and picked Anil Kapoor.

A: The truth is that the book got optioned to Film Four even before Q&A was published. Bollywood came knocking after publication but the rights were already with Film Four. At one stage, the film was going straight to DVD because they thought the film would not be a success.

Q: I have got to ask you this because some people think you have shown the poverty and the bad side of India. Some people have objected because of the scene in which a small boy wades through human excreta to get to Amitabh Bachchan to get his autograph. He is covered in yellow. They complain you have done India down and that’s why Westerners like the movie. They say that with India becoming a superpower, they are happy it is a reminder that India still has slums.

A: Do they mean we mustn’t show slums? They completely miss the point. First, it’s a film, it’s not showing reality. The script was written by Simon Beaufoy but I supervised the script. I saw the first draft, made some suggestions, then saw the second draft. The point is that a slum, even Dharavi, is not a place of despair, it is a place of optimism and hope. There is also a scene in the movie when Jamal and his elder brother look down from on high and see the transformation of the slums of old Bombay to the tall buildings of the new Mumbai.

Q: Are you surprised at the number of awards the film has won, the Critics’ award, four Golden Globes and so on?

A: 67 at the last count — no, I am not. It is now riding a roller coaster.

Q: Will you go to the Oscars in LA if the film is nominated?

A: I’d like to and will if asked. But I know India will go mad if it is nominated for an Oscar.

Q: I know you served as a diplomat at the Indian High Commission in London, then you were director of Natwar Singh’s “cabinet” when he was external affairs minister, and that you are now India’s Deputy High Commissioner in South Africa. After the astonishing success of Q&A, will you a) dump diplomacy and become a full time writer; b) do a PhD on India’s oil procurement policy, with special reference to Iraq; c) live on Aparna’s earnings as an artist and relax at home, or d) remain a diplomat and keep the day job?

A: d —you can be assured I am keeping the day job.

Q: Final answer? Computer lock kiya jai?

A: Final answer.