It feels a little strange writing this essay. Partly because I am used to seeing the future as something that is yet to come, and partly because I am wrestling with a somewhat essential part of who I am as a writer of speculative fiction.

I am writing about writing about robots in a world where robots can write. Specifically, I am writing about how I write about robots and whether something needs to change in the way I do it.

I was in my twenties when I took a train to Pune to appear for an interview for a journalism school there. On the day of the interview, we (me and my four friends) didn't have to wait long. Most interviews took something between five to ten minutes. After mine was over, my friends asked me what had taken me so long. Apparently, I had been in there for the better part of 30 minutes.

We had gotten over the formalities (qualifications, motivations for seeking a career in media, my non-existent experience in the field) pretty quickly, but just as my five minutes were over, the interviewer happened to ask me what my hobbies were. When I answered that I liked reading science fiction, he asked me for details.

I spent the rest of my interview talking about robots. The gentleman who sat before me, it turned out, was also fairly nerdy. We talked about individuality, ego, and social structures. We discussed ethics, humanity, and my views on anthropomorphic symbolism. I passed my interview, not because of qualifications or experience, but because of a hobby that had exposed me to more ways of seeing than our schools often afford.

(I didn't join this school, but that's a different story.)