Tirumal Mundargi is a glowworm.  Or his life has become like the light a glowworm gives to the world even if it doesn't understand why it gives itself to the world.  Read Tirumal's story at Thieves Jargon.

Hello Tirumal,
congratulations on getting into thieves jargon.  What are your
thoughts?  What are you thinking about at this exact moment?

Thanks, M Baumer. I always thought every cloud has a silver
lining. I've tried my best in all departments of story telling. I experimented
with an idea. Fortunately it worked. I feel extremely happy right now. On cloud
nine, perhaps.
Right now I'm thinking of my present and my future as well as a writer. I'm
thinking of experimenting with more and more new ideas. I'm thinking of ways of
entertaining my readers. I've always wanted them to laugh, and laugh, and laugh.
I want to write like that. If somebody laughs after reading some of my stories,
that will be something.

Tirumal, where are
you right now?  How did you get to this moment in time?  What is the
biggest reason you became Tirumal and not someone like my roommate Samson?

Right now, I am in front of my digital pigeon, my computer.
Till now I was traveling on a bus, and another bus after that. It had been a
long journey. I've to endure it every day. I endured it, so I arrived in time. I
must say it has been a pleasant journey.
Once, while traveling on a bus, sitting by the window, I saw darkness all
around. Darkness and nothing. I didn't get frightened. I got down from the bus,
against the conductor's warning, and tried to look clearly in that darkness,
widening my eyes all around, stretching them beyond limits. At last, I saw a
swarm of glowworms approaching me. I went near them; they too surrounded me,
hundreds of them. 
I became Tirumal because, my parents believed that I could become one, named me
in a pompous cradle ceremony after the Lord of seven hills. I wanted to become
Samson, but you didn't allow me to be so. So I became Tirumal.

I'd like to hear more
about these glow worms.  Also, this is very cliche, but I'm curious of how
you got into writing and your process and what these bus rides have to do with
it.

I've been writing since my school days, in Kannada, my
mother tongue. To begin with, I wrote a novella with a fountain pen. I filled
all the pages of a four hundred-page exercise book. With blue words. I gave it
to one of my relatives. Maybe she read it. But she didn't return the
unpublished work.

While in college I used to write Kannada poems, and even
succeeded in publishing some of them in papers and magazines and college
souvenirs.

I read a great deal then. Only Kannada novels. I
understood very little English. One Kannada fantasy writer captured my
imagination. His name is BChi. I wondered if anybody could write like that. I,
too, would try some day, I thought. Later on, in order to learn English I read
James Hadley Chase, some twenty-five novels written by him. I also read English
papers like Indian Express, Deccan Herald and The Hindu. Also countless
magazines.

It was then that I started writing in English, in
Letters to the Editor columns. I continued to write till 2006 like that.
Meanwhile, I completed M.A. in History and Archeology, and Ph.D. as well. I
even had one research article published in the acclaimed Economic and Political
Weekly, Bombay. They'd accepted two more articles but didn't publish them.

I bought a computer in 2003, got to know about the internet.
But I still don't know how I got myself into writing short stories. I have been
persevering since 2006, and had my first success only in this Hindu calendar
year. When Thieves Jargon accepted my story for publication I was both
delighted and humbled.

As already mentioned, I want to write for
entertainment, the way BChi and Chase would have done.

My recent successes are like the glowworms that ended my
dark period, the years of my struggle. That incident took place sometime in
March, but I have not forgotten those glowworms since then. The very fact that
they exist conveys some meaning in life. I want to live like that. Glowing
without knowing.

What are your honest
thoughts of the USA?  How many years until India is the greatest country
in the world?

USA is a real friend of India, the only friend of India,
perhaps. I personally regard USA as the only superpower. USA has been helping India
for the last two decades, been giving shelter to Indians since time immemorial.
I personally hope that USA will help India, sincerely, in the coming years. It
is good for the world in general and USA itself in particular if India becomes
strong. We are like the brothers fighting for a common cause.
I want the American Indians to be more loyal to the USA than to India.
That is the right way to be.
India is already the greatest country in the world. Just like the USA. I hope USA's material wealth and India's
manpower come together to make this world a better place to live.