Everybody has their own India and I think it's a nonsense construction, a real India. The real India might be the India of the villages and certainly there's a lot to be said of the fact that India's heart lies in its villages. But I live 5 miles down the road from Gurgaon with skyscrapers and software companies and back-office projects and call-centers. And that's a very real India too, so I think real India doesn't make much sense— anymore than the real US with apple pie and Thanksgiving and family around campfires; is that anymore real than Manhattan?

In Amrita Ghosh, "Author in Focus: An Interview with Dalrymple".