India, March 5 -- Was writing an obvious pivot for you or was it something that came from an urgency to put your voice out there?

Both actually. When you start writing a story, the feeling is that now, if you don't do it, something catastrophic will happen. So, it's like the most natural thing to do. It's like a natural calling. For me, it was just the obvious thing to do. Perhaps because of COVID, I was not distracted by films or shooting or whatever. I was able to really put out and crystallize my thoughts in the best possible way.

Humour is the overarching tone of the novel, which never lets you even take the titular character Zeba seriously as a superhero. Was that a conscious authorial choice?

A hundred percent. I feel like people...