Neil Gaiman almost came to India, twice.
The genre-defying author, who announced his participation in Jaipur Literature Festival this year on Twitter only not to arrive later, hopes third time's the charm with his Indian fans.
Gaiman said he was unable to visit the country due to a clash between the festival and shooting dates for Amazon Prime Video's "Good Omens", on which he serves as creator and executive producer.
"It was a time when the shooting of 'Good Omens' stretched from October 2018 to middle of December to January 2019, when I was supposed to come to Jaipur for the literature festival. But that couldn't happen as we were shooting for the sixth and final episode of 'Good Omens'. There were no options," he told PTI in a telephonic interview from London.
However, the writer said he is not one to take things for granted, adding that he is "enormously aware" of his popularity in India.
"I have so many people who read my stuff in India. They keep asking me, they love what I do and there are so many people who would like to turn up."
"It was Terry's last wish to me, so I had to do it. Honouring Terry was most important. I remember, almost years ago now, going home starting to write at 11.31 in the night. I felt that Terry would want to see this go ahead. I thought I'm going to give this just another chance."
"Something which I learnt while working with Terry Pratchett... You write grounded characters and you wind up doing amazing things with them. With 'Sandman', I'm assuming that the reader is intelligent and I'm assuming that the readership wanted to read stories about real people, even if it involves anthropomorphic personification about a universal concept."
"It's a joy to find out about a concept from different standpoints in various cultures. 'Good Omens' like that is giving people a different way to imagine what heaven and hell may look like. Hopefully, making them laugh and fill them with delight."
"I think the smarter thing to do, the wiser thing to do is to see yourself as the member of the human race. Maybe this will get us through the day and hopefully it will make people's lives less shi**y."