, who won the 2008 Man Booker Prize for his debut novel The White Tiger , comes out with his new book Selection Day (4th Estate), set on the cricket maidans of Mumbai. A coming-of-age novel, it traces young Manjunath ’s life and loves in the city.At the heart of this book, which has a cadence as smooth as a cover drive, is his love for Javed Ansari in the time of Section 377. In an email interview with, Adiga, 41, talks about cricket, Mumbai and why he keeps away from lit fests. Excerpts:How can you not write about cricket in India today? It’s colossal, it’s everywhere. Like the master-servant relationship in India that I explored in The White Tiger, cricket is so big that it’s almost invisible. We don’t question or interrogate cricket enough in this country. The quest was initially abstract — ‘to write about cricket’ — but then it became something personal.I began to see myself in the young cricketing geniuses whom I met and interviewed for the book. From the time these boys are four or five years old, their whole life is nothing but cricket. They are told they must make the cut on selection day: or else there is no future for them and their families. When my brother and I were growing up in Mangalore in the 1980s, we were told every day that we had to do exceptionally well in our studies.It wasn’t enough to get 90% or 95%: it had to be 100%, so we would get a ‘merit seat’ in engineering or medicine. Sports, friends, cinema — nothing else mattered. Both my brother and I made the cut on our own selection day. In 1985, he stood second in Karnataka in the state-wide SSLC exam , and, five years later, I stood first. But when I look back on it, it seems like my childhood was robbed from me. In my own way, I went through a version of what Manju and (his brother) Radha do.Unlearning is the most important thing you have to do when writing about anything in India because so much absolutely useless information is dumped on us from birth. Whether it is regional prejudices — south Indians do this, north Indians do that — or political prejudices, or for that matter worthless notions about sports, we are taught from childhood to accept stereotypes over the truth.I’m full of them, and I realise this only when I embark on a new novel. The things we think we know well turn out to be things we barely know. If you were to construct a logical bat-ball game, you would end up with something much closer to baseball. Why does cricket exist the way it does? And secondly, why does Indian cricket exist the way it does? For instance, if we don’t produce great fast bowlers because we have flat pitches, why does Pakistan ? These were the unlearnings with which Selection Day began.Makarand Waingankar is one of the most generous and wonderful men I’ve met. His knowledge of Mumbai cricket is extensive and passionate.I met him in the early stages of my research for Selection Day. If anyone knows how we can still save cricket from the BCCI , it is Mr Waingankar.I think that India, despite its multitudinous problems, is a place where an individual of courage can find a clear road to freedom. If I didn’t believe this, I wouldn’t stay here or write fiction set here.Yes, there are many obstructions in the path of Manjunath Kumar realising his sexual identity, but he perhaps allows himself to become a victim. I’m not sure — my own opinion of Manju changes from day to day, hour to hour.Five years ago, I left Café Ideal at Chowpatty , my favourite restaurant in Mumbai, and was walking towards the ocean, when I had a vision: the waves appeared to be receding from me. That was the master image with which Selection Day began.A man walking to the ocean — the waves receding. A city like Mumbai, packed, full of problems, creating new space for itself to grow. How does this happen? Perhaps through people like Manjunath Kumar. He is still young when the novel ends: through him, and millions of others like him, the city can yet grow.I disagree. There is a woman present in this novel from start to finish — Manjunath Kumar’s missing mother. She permeates his memories, day-dreaming, and clearly is also part of the reason for his attraction towards Javed Ansari.When I was doing my research for this book, at least two of the teenage cricketing geniuses whom I met in Mumbai told me their mothers ‘had run away’ — and one look at their fathers, I thought I knew why. The absent mother is as strong a presence in this novel as anyone else.Yashwant Chittal, a bilingual Konkani-Kannada novelist, wrote the finest Bombay novel I know of: Shikari. Naresh Fernandes, Arun Kolatkar, Dom Moraes — these are the real Bombay writers. I’m just an interloper here, both physically and in a literary sense.Years ago, I attended a literary festival in England. A woman stood up and asked, ‘When will India let Pakistan become an independent country?’ I said, Excuse me, Ma’m, and she asked the same thing again, very slowly.I went to my hotel room and cried. Here, when I do events, I face the opposite problem. The earnest young man raises his hand and asks, ‘Sir, do you think drip irrigation will solve all our problems?’ Do I look like Ram Guha? How on earth would I know?