India, Feb. 12 -- The title of your book, Both Not Half, signals a new way of looking at the mathematics of everyday living: the idea of fractions and the idea of what the individual considers as being their whole self. You note that you were interested in oneness, and not being a sum of parts. Please talk about the politics of a hyphenated identity and the prevalent desire to reduce people to fractions of who they are.

Oh, wow, where to begin? I think I began my journey with Both Not Half almost unconsciously when I realised that society was trying to make me choose one thing or the other or wanted me to be a hyphenated being. And I couldn't just be my whole self. The reason I became aware of this was because my parents gifted me the jo...