What does this honour by the Indian government for children's literature mean in the larger context of things?
It will be a door-opener and it will become easier to get my children's stories published for a wider market. On the other hand, it is a great honour, which I am very grateful for. It comes not only to me as an individual — I do not think it is for me alone. It comes to the region, to Nagaland and to the Northeast, and that is such a joy on both counts.

Tell us about how Son of the Thundercloud was born?
I wrote a book I loved because it engaged with ordinary people who accepted the spiritual in their lives in a trusting manner and let the most amazing things come to pass via their faith in it. I worked on combining a folk tale with the nativity story, pondered on prophecy and the supernatural, and wove that into the life of a traveller who is, in a way, all of us too. How much do we accept the supernatural? How far can we stretch the imagination and still achieve suspension of disbelief? I guess I was experimenting with these — at the same time, I was also greatly enjoying writing about love: sister love, mother-son love, nephew-aunt love, pure love between a man and a woman, and the deathlessness of love in its purest forms. And the book was born on a sofa in winter with the hope that the kind of love the Raindrop son represented would touch people's hearts.