Amitav Ghosh

A lot of them are from Europe and especially the United States and Canada.

So, you know, that's just one.

I mean, there are a couple of other university departments that have been studying this phenomenon.

So it's nothing new.

It's all there.

I see it all the time, absolutely.

One sees confirmation of, you know, that the world is much more mysterious and actually I would say much more wonderful than, you know, the usual sort of materialistic numbers-based approach would have us think.

It has happened to me several times.

Yes, I've had those uncanny experiences many, too many times to just for me to dismiss them as coincidence or whatever.

And I could give you a long list, but yes, I've had that experience many times.

And I think many writers have, and actually,

If you think about it, writing is in itself a kind of oddball activity.

It's not a normal thing.

I mean, those of us who become writers are in some sense not your regular people or just your normal people.

I mean, there's something that makes us get into this art or craft or whatever you call it.

And Stephen King, I think, says it better than anyone else.

I mean, he's often said,

that the ideas for his books come to him from somewhere outside himself.

You know, he doesn't actually know where they come from.

No, and I don't think any writer can really claim that they, I mean, unless they're sort of very systematic, and there are writers like that, you know, who plan everything out and who have a whole sort of storyboard that carries them along.