Salman Rushdie You’ve left the hard work of interpreting India to the Western world to dilettantes like the makers of Slumdog Millionaire. We’re disappointed. How about setting an India novel in this decade? One tip: no more characters with mid-life crises (that means, nothing resembling any of your work post-2001). You can thank us when the Nobel Committee finally calls.
	Arundhati Roy The fiction-reading classes are full of morally bankrupt sociopaths. We’re sorry. But won’t you try us again? If you wrote another novel (say, one set among the comrades, like your recent polemic), we’d love it. In fact, we would probably shower you with awards and glory. Again. What do you mean, that’s not your point?
	Vikram Chandra Where do you go after you’ve done the Mumbai gangster epic of a lifetime? (We tried to ask Ram Gopal Varma; he isn’t returning our calls.) In the interests of historical integrity, we think you should do a Dubai gangster epic next, with an extended Karachi section. We hear they’ve taken up with cricket, too. Whatever you do, just make sure Suketu Mehta doesn’t get to your material first.
	Shobhaa De The truth. (Of course.)
	Jhumpa Lahiri We haven’t read anything about upper-middle-class, well-educated, heterosexual, introspective Bengalis adrift in the sea of immigrant America for so long; we’re tempted to ask you to write something along those lines. No, seriously, Jhumpa, if you decided to boldly experiment with a different section of society – maybe Bengalis with only one college degree? Bisexual Bengalis? Middle-middle-class Bengalis? Non-Beng…no, no, forgive us for suggesting that! – the sheer shock would propel us to the bookstores.
	Shashi Tharoor Since we are refined and highbrow literary critics, we are not going to suggest the obvious. Absolutely, positively not. A tell-all book on your prowls through the corridors of power? Who on earth would be interested in that?
	Amitav Ghosh Look, Amitav, whenever you write something, the New York Review of Books, sundry awards committees, and most sentient beings tend to drop everything and read it. If they slapped your name on the cover of the telephone directory, we would find it a moving and intellectually stimulating read. So please just put this magazine down and write.
	Chetan Bhagat We know you don’t need our advice. You’re already the most successful writer in the history of forever and a day. But have you ever thought about writing a film script? We just heard a great idea about these three fellows who land up in an engineering college.

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