The Venus World follows six Queens ruling over a dystopian New World while an uprising threatens their supremacy. What was the inspiration for the setup to your story?

Our world tends to be male skewed. The atrocities against women are high across most parts of the world and sometimes even in our own neighbourhood.

Before I start to write, I tend to ask the question, ‘What if?’ In this case it was, ‘What if men were not the dominant species, would women take control? This led to further questions like, why would men let women come into power, why would they let them rule unopposed, if women ruled, would men be slaves, would they be the weaker sex? And that was the foundation of the story, a bio-terrorist attack gone wrong, setting up the scene for women domination and a role reversal in this new World.

The six Queens are unique and intriguing characters. What were some driving ideals behind your character’s development?

The six Queens are very different from each other, including their hunger for power. Some like Rani have been thrust into a leadership role they very clearly never wanted. Queen Marihiba is totally power greedy, using her ruthless nature to rise from being a mere guard to a Queen. Others are privileged rulers, while still others like Lohi are fighting demons of their own, while Queen Polime is often misunderstood, however unpredictable and loyal to her people. It is this stark difference that makes the mix between the Queens volatile and interesting. No woman truly trusts the other and the alliances are fragile, capable of snapping at the slightest provocation, which is exactly what Z plays upon to gain power from the Queens.

What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?

I wanted to show that:

• women can also rule effectively, however, at the end of the day, they too are humans and humans irrespective of their gender (be it male, female or the 3rd), race and sexual orientation, are still either power hungry tyrants or feel empathy towards others as the case may be.
• human beings unite and rise in the face of adversity.
• sometimes the best move is strategic in nature, rather than physical.

What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?

I have a couple of books in the pipeline which should be ready by late this year or early 2022.

1. A fantasy – thriller, on the lines of Harry Potter meets The Amazing Race, meets Indiana Jones!
2. A creature – feature set in Mumbai, India (my current residence) about a pre-historic creature that inhabits the neglected and much abused waterways of the island city, causing chaos and bringing death.

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