I love characters which are not just black and white. I love stories which you love and hate. I love characters who portray real people of flesh and blood. I don't read to escape reality. I don't write to live in Dreamland. I associate with books to feel a sense of belonging with this world, to make friends with characters about whom I can talk about with my husband before going to bed, of whom I can relay tales with my colleagues in office during lunch, about whom I can think when I am in a rickshaw, about whom I can gossip with my sibling.