RTNDR:  I’ve just finished reading the book and I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed it.  For me, it reminded me of old school Marvel comics I’ve read from the 1980s.  What was your influence in writing this superhero novel?

Samit:  It started out as a book about a group of young people, in a part of the world that really needed change, not preservation, suddenly getting what they really want, the power to make that change. But along the way, when I realized that strange physical powers would make anyone in our times think of superheroes, it became a superhero book. So the plot is really its own thing, as are the themes within it, but some fantastic comics I’ve read were definitely inspirations in terms of seeing how superheroes might actually fit into the world and change it – books like Powers, The Authority, Watchmen, apart from the standard Marvel/DC classics.

RTNDR:  In Turbulence the characters mention various pop culture references, like the X-men.  Did you grow up with reading lots of comic books, movies, and sci-fi flicks?

Samit:  No, not really. I grew up in India without those things being available. But I made up for lost time as an adult, after I became a writer, engorging myself on a steady diet of comics, films and TV shows, starting with when I lived in London as a student. Books, though, I always had. But this book is really a post-Internet book; it couldn’t have happened without it, and was deeply affected by it. Now, of course, we get our pop culture fixes in India too. That’s happened over the last decade. For me, it’s been more a process of diving into it and trying (and failing) to catch up rather than growing up with it.

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