Ajay Khajuria is an author, public speaker, and professional with extensive experience across the corporate, academic, and consulting fields. He is the author of Jammu – The Land of Heritage and Legends and the founder of Tawi Tales, a weekly podcast. With I Know Your Secrets, he makes his debut in fiction, bringing readers a suspenseful story of buried truths, family, and the consequences of a past that refuses to remain hidden.
The Literature Times: Ajay, welcome to the podcast. What inspired you to write I Know Your Secrets?
Ajay Khajuria: Thank you for having me. The inspiration really came from people. In over twenty-five years of working across companies, campuses and boardrooms, I have met hundreds of individuals, and I have noticed that almost everyone carries something they never speak about. A decision, a regret, a chapter they have closed and locked away. I kept wondering: what happens when that locked chapter suddenly opens? That question stayed with me, and eventually it became this novel.
The Literature Times: Your story revolves around a secret that has remained hidden for forty years. Why did you choose this idea as the foundation of the novel?
Ajay Khajuria: Because time changes the weight of a secret. A secret kept for a week is a worry. A secret kept for forty years becomes part of your identity. By then, a person has built a career, a family, a reputation, all standing on top of that hidden truth. So when it’s threatened, it isn’t just one fact at risk, it’s an entire life. That gave me the stakes I wanted for a thriller.
The Literature Times: Without revealing the mystery, what can readers expect when they enter S.K.’s world?
Ajay Khajuria: They can expect a man who appears to have everything under control, and then slowly loses that control. It’s a world of quiet tension, where ordinary moments suddenly feel threatening, and where readers will constantly question who knows what, and why. There are twists, but there is also a very human story underneath about fear, guilt and the people we love.
The Literature Times: The line “I know your secrets” immediately creates suspense. How did this phrase come to you?
Ajay Khajuria: I wanted something short that would unsettle anyone who reads it, because the truth is, it works on everyone. We all have something we wouldn’t want someone else to know. The moment you read those four words, your mind goes to your own secrets, not just the character’s. Once I realised the phrase did that, I knew it had to be both the trigger in the story and the title of the book.
The Literature Times: S.K. has built his entire life around keeping his past hidden. What interested you about exploring this kind of character?
Ajay Khajuria: What interested me was the cost of it. Keeping a secret for that long isn’t a single act, it’s a daily discipline. Every conversation, every relationship, every choice is filtered through it. I wanted to explore what that does to a person from the inside: the vigilance, the loneliness, and the constant fear that one careless moment could undo everything. S.K. isn’t simply a hero or a villain. He’s someone readers may judge, and yet understand.
The Literature Times: How did you balance the suspense of the story with its emotional and family elements?
Ajay Khajuria: I treated them as one thread rather than two. The suspense matters only because of what S.K. stands to lose, and what he stands to lose is his family and the life he has built with them. So every step forward in the mystery also puts pressure on those relationships. If readers care about the people around S.K., the tension becomes personal, and that makes the thriller work.
The Literature Times: The novel deals with the consequences of keeping secrets. Do you think some truths are better left undiscovered?
Ajay Khajuria: That’s the question I would like readers to wrestle with themselves. My own view is that a secret rarely stays still. It either fades or it grows, and the ones that grow usually find a way out. Some truths may hurt when they come out, but hiding them often hurts more people, for longer. The novel doesn’t give a neat answer, but it does show what the hiding costs.
The Literature Times: Your professional background spans corporate, academic, and consulting fields. How has that experience influenced your approach to storytelling?
Ajay Khajuria: In marketing, you learn very quickly that people do not respond to information, they respond to stories and emotions. That shaped how I think about readers: what will hold their attention, and what will make them feel something. My years in the corporate world also gave me a close view of ambition, pressure and reputation, which are all present in S.K.’s life. And teaching has taught me patience, how to reveal things step by step so that the audience stays with you.
The Literature Times: This is your first work of fiction. How different was writing a thriller compared to your earlier book, Jammu – The Land of Heritage and Legends?
Ajay Khajuria: Very different. With the Jammu book, my job was to be faithful to history, legends and facts, and to present them with respect. The material already existed; I was its custodian. With the thriller, nothing existed until I created it. I had to build characters, invent a past, and control what the reader knows at every moment. What connects both books is my love for stories. One celebrates the stories of a land, and the other imagines the story of one man.
The Literature Times: How important was it for you to keep the final revelation unpredictable for the reader?
Ajay Khajuria: Extremely important. A thriller makes a promise to the reader, and the ending is where you keep it or break it. But I didn’t want a twist simply for shock. I wanted an ending that surprises you, and then makes you look back and realise the clues were there all along. If readers close the book and want to go back to the first chapter, I will feel I have done my job.
