The five Ws of being a writer (but just about anything): why, from where, when, how. Are some of us born to be writers? And is that by the gift of the pen or the gift of blood? Does class, caste and access have a role to play too? What about the city you’re born in? And the education, reading you undergo as a young writer? All these and so many more things come together to refine, define and (un)make a writer. I came to think about it today as I read yet another article about Geetanjali Shree’s International Booker win for Ret Samadhi (Tomb of Sand).

Unfazed in the face of the win, Shree and translator Daisy Rockwell have been giving candid interviews in the medias more internationally than nationally. I read most of them, sometimes twice over as I make my way through both versions of the book. Some days I feel like a student on an assignment to know as much as one can about the book, outside of the book. I watch interviews new and old, search for podcasts, writers Shree refers to, tweets Rockwell responds to. I go to sleep thinking about the book, its story, the win, Shree among other more immediate, personal things. The book, it seems, has imprinted itself into the psyches of Indian readers.