family encouraged reading and writing from an early age my paternal grandfather was involved in dravidian politics and my maternal grandfather was a scholar of shaivism and tamil literature they said they would support me till i made a place for myself later my wife supported me my life is a simple one so i manage it is true writers dont earn much here i chose this life so i have no regretsq how do you balance between writing for mainstream films and literaturei grew up watching popular movies and still watch them the income from films helps me for six or seven months so that can be seen as my job but i usually work in films directed by my friends there is a perception that cinema disrespects writers but i havent faced such an incident a decade from now i believe another writer will be able to enter cinema easily because of the work i have doneq tamil writers have started publishing their own work what made this necessarypublishing has become simpler earlier a publisher would print 1000 copies using a huge investment and would store them in a warehouse today we have printondemand technology where we can print 100 or 500 copies so now writers dont need to depend on anyone traditional publishers give 10 to 15 royalty to writers and 35 to sellers if i publish myself i could earn that also today marketing is also easier with book fairs and online retailersq there is a perception that there would always be rivalry between tamil writersi think competition inspires and ensures diversity there are rivalries and groups in tamil literature but they make it more interesting i think it shouldnt become personal attacks today the scene is healthyq has tamil literature reached the global stageno the main reason is we dont think of taking it to the world if 100 people from the tamil diaspora translate one tamil book a year or even write introductory essays on a book tamil literature can spread worldwide if contemporary tamil literature can get into universities abroad it would be a major boostq you have been writing for about 30 years have you achieved what you set out to doi have almost reached the middle of my career i have tried various things i wanted to do i have a deep interest in russian literature and have been speaking and writing about it i have also been writing on travel i want to write about the history of buddhism in tamil nadu while there is nonfiction writing on the subject i have planned a novel