He has traversed the disparate worlds of journalism, cinema, and literature with a flair often found amiss or in short supply among journos - whether newshawks, beat reporters, opinion columnists, or feature writers. Ditto for his unconditional accessibility and the willingness to strike a conversation with people across all walks of life, those hogging the limelight or working in the wilderness. How unlike our celebrity media folks who invariably lose their poise in their blatantly advertised purpose and handcrafted news items which ‘the nation wants to know’ only because they say so.
As an investigative journalist, his body of work is undoubtedly wholesome: how he exposed the wrongdoings and oddities across spheres including the Bofors scam, Rajiv Gandhi assassination, drug cartels of India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, BCCI Bank money laundering, and the Pamela Bordes espionage scandal. His creative stint at UTV is also well documented so also his Indonesian productions that won him worldwide critical acclaim. In fact, his film Di Bawah Lindungan Ka'bah (Under the Protection of Ka'bah) competed at the Oscars in 2012 in the Best Foreign Film category.
His long-form writing successes paved the way for his OTT debut in the form of ‘The Hunt’ based on Ninety Days: The True Story of the Hunt for Rajiv Gandhi's Assassins. We are thrilled to know that Sameer Nair of Applause was instrumental in making this adaptation happen. We hope he will team up with Nair for the long term, and hope he will steer clear of the low-IQ makers of any screen – small and silver alike – as they will only end up diluting his work beyond recognition.
I am currently glued to his The Delhi Directive book on India’s nameless and faceless RAW operatives and enigmatic geopolitical realities and will share my two-penny feedback in the name of a review soon. Having said that, I couldn’t wait to do a tete-a-tete with this thought leader on a host of issues – from the personal to the professional. His elaborate answers to each of my questions bear testimony to his a reflective mind and compassionate spirit. That he is, like me, a die-hard Satyajit Ray admirer is the icing on the cake.
Here goes the tete-a-tete with best-selling author and screenwriter Anirudhya Mitra:
You have traversed a winding route, from TOI to OTT. Which role brought out the best in you: investigative reporter, TV creative director, feature film producer, or bestselling author, or has it been a mixed bag?
It has been a mixed bag, and I say that without hesitation because I genuinely enjoyed every phase of the journey, even the difficult ones which did not feel so enjoyable at the time.
Getting into investigative reporting was driven by the influence of people like M J Akbar, Arun Shourie, Shekhar Gupta, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. That was the late seventies and early eighties. Journalism then had a certain energy, almost a sense of purpose. Every reporter wanted to break a story, every byline on the front page meant something. Politics was on the boil in the final years of Indira Gandhi. Then came her assassination, followed by riots in which thousands of Sikhs were killed. Rajiv Gandhi came to power with an overwhelming mandate. You were living in a time when history was unfolding around you, and every story felt urgent. It was hectic, sometimes overwhelming, but also deeply exciting.
Moving from TOI to India Today was a dream for someone interested in investigative journalism. And then came the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. The investigation into that case opened up an entirely new dimension for me. For a while, my stories were consistently ahead in terms of insight and detail, and that gave me both confidence and visibility. But that phase also brought its own friction. Some of my stories began to make people uncomfortable, including people within the system. I remember one particular story being held back because it was felt that publishing it could destabilize the Narasimha Rao government and hurt economic reforms. I found that reasoning difficult to accept. I was doing my job, which was to expose corruption. When that is compromised, you begin to question your place.
That was the phase when I felt disillusioned enough to move on. Pritish Nandi offered me an opportunity in television, and I took it without overthinking. It was a new world, and I learned a great deal while producing shows for DD, Zee and BBC. But I also realized that if I had to take television or films seriously, I had to be in Bombay. That led me to UTV in 1994 under Ronnie Screwvala. It was an important phase in my life. We created Sea Hawks for DD Metro, which remains one of the more defining works of that period.
Around that time, the television landscape itself was changing. Channels were beginning to take control of content, and production houses were increasingly becoming service providers. I had to decide whether to align with that shift or look elsewhere. I chose to move out. That decision took me to Southeast Asia, where I worked across Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. It was a very different experience. I moved into a more managerial role, built teams, brought in talent from India, and eventually began producing feature films. One of them, Di Bawah Lindungan Ka’bah, went to the Oscars in 2012, and another, Habibie and Ainun, became a major box office success.
Yet, despite all that, I felt a certain disconnect. The audience I was working for was not the audience I instinctively understood. Over time, it became clear to me that I was better suited to the Indian space, both intellectually and temperamentally. So I returned to India towards the end of 2019.
I met Sameer Nair at Applause Entertainment and discussed the idea of a series on the Rajiv Gandhi assassination. At some point, it became clear that the most effective way to bring all the facts together was to write a book. That is how 90 Days came into being. The response to the book changed the direction of my career once again. It became a bestseller, and I moved into writing full time.
If I have to answer your question directly, I would still say it has been a mixed bag. Each phase taught me something that the previous one could not. But writing has given me something the others did not. It has given me a sense of voice, and a certain completeness. I enjoy it in a way that is difficult to put into words, and for now, this feels like the place where everything I have done so far comes together.
The decision to pursue fiction writing rooted in politics and espionage, I presume, would not have been a single epiphany. What drew you to, and committed you to the norms of, a vocation that blends the clinical with the lyrical? Any specific incident or interaction that you can trace as the seed of the storyteller in you?
I have always seen myself as a storyteller. The medium kept changing, sometimes by choice, sometimes by compulsion, but the instinct remained the same. Whether I was reporting a story, making a television show or writing a book, the urge was always to understand something deeply and then share that understanding with others. I have been a curious person by nature, and that curiosity often pushed me into spaces I had not planned for.
If I go back far enough, I wanted to be a filmmaker. That was the original pull. This was the time when parallel cinema was offering a very different language of storytelling. Filmmakers like Mrinal Sen, Shyam Benegal, Adoor Gopal Krishnan, M S Sathyu, Govind Nihalani were shaping that space, along with the towering presence of Satyajit Ray. I was deeply influenced by that movement. Coming from a typical Bengali background of that time, there was also a certain ideological leaning. Mrinal Sen and Ritwik Ghatak spoke to that part of me more directly than Ray did at that stage. It took me time to fully understand Ray’s depth and craft, and when I did, I realised there was no comparison to be made.
But wanting to enter films and actually doing it were two very different things, especially for someone from a lower middle class background. I had to earn a living. I began as an engineer in a chemical factory in Haryana, but that was never going to be my destination. I moved towards writing about films, doing reviews as a freelancer. That phase gave me some encouragement. I even managed to get an exclusive interview with Satyajit Ray which was carried on the front page of Hindustan Times. For someone at that stage, that meant a lot.
Could you talk a bit more on the interview with the great man, for my sake and for the sake of all Ray admirers across the globe...
If I remember it right, it was the summer of 1983. Kolkata was heavy with heat. I was a young freelance reporter then, moving through the city with more hope than access, knocking on doors, chasing conversations, looking for a break.I knew where Satyajit Ray lived. One afternoon, almost on instinct, I went and stood outside his house. There was no manager, no gatekeeping machinery. A member of the house staff carried my request inside. I waited, unsure if anything would come of it.Then I was called in. For a few seconds, I genuinely did not know what to believe. I was standing in front of him. He asked me where I worked. My voice gave me away. I was nervous, visibly so.
I told him I wrote occasionally for The Hindustan Times and showed him a few clippings, almost like proof that I deserved to be there.He looked at them, paused, and then asked me to come back the next day at the same time.The next day, I arrived with my tape recorder, even more nervous than before. Before we began, he suggested I check if the recorder was working. I did. And that’s when it hit me. I had forgotten the batteries.
For a moment, everything collapsed inside me. I told him I would step out and get them immediately. He didn’t let me. He walked to a cupboard, took out fresh cells, and handed them to me with a faint smile. “Ami apnake eta dichhi… returnable basis a kintu.” (I will lend you the batteries, albieit on returanbale basis)
Four Eveready 1.5 volt batteries. Brand new. I didn’t know where to look. I didn’t know how to apologise. But in that moment, the man I had been intimidated by just seconds ago made it impossible for me to feel small. His presence was towering, yes, but his grace was even larger.
Tea arrived. ‘Nice’ biscuits on the side. Soon, the interview began. I struggled with my questions. My English felt clumsy to my own ears. But he responded with complete seriousness, as if he were speaking to a seasoned journalist. There was no condescension, no impatience but pure attention.Somewhere in those few minutes, my fear dissolved. Not because I found confidence, but because he gave it to me.
Through his openness, through the respect he extended to a young, unsure reporter, he allowed me to become what I was trying to be. The interview lasted about forty minutes or so, but what stayed with me was everything around it. After we finished, more tea came. This time with sautéed peanuts, lightly salted, and chirer payesh. We spoke a little more, informally. Or perhaps I just listened. Even today, when I think back to that afternoon, it does not feel like a memory. It feels immediate. As if that tall figure, that deep voice, that quiet generosity, are still present somewhere in the room. I still get goosebumps.
Coming back to your story, when did you move to fiction writing?
Very soon, the limitations of the freelancing path became clear. It did not pay enough, and before I could find a structured way into filmmaking, I was drawn into full-time journalism. In hindsight, that detour shaped me far more than I could have imagined. It gave me discipline, access, and a way of looking at reality without filters.
If I have to identify one moment that stayed with me, it would be Shekhar Gupta’s coverage of the Nellie massacre in India Today. I still remember the impact it had on me. It was not just the information, it was the way the story was told, the depth, the clarity, the sense of responsibility. That piece showed me what storytelling could do when it is rooted in truth and courage. It left a deep impression, and in many ways, it stayed with me as a benchmark.
So when I eventually moved towards fiction, especially in the space of politics and espionage, it did not feel like a shift. It felt like a continuation. The clinical and the lyrical, as you put it, come from the same place for me. One is about facts, the other about human experience, but both demand honesty. My years in journalism gave me the clinical discipline, and my original pull towards cinema and storytelling brought in the narrative instinct. Somewhere along the way, the two merged, and I did not feel the need to separate them anymore.
Could you talk a bit about your formative years of upbringing and education? Fond memories of family, friends, acquaintances, teachers, home town, neighbourhood, and the like…
Frankly speaking, my upbringing and education were quite ordinary on the face of it. I studied in vernacular medium schools which had no particular identity, and when I joined college, I could barely speak in English. The real turning point came when my father was transferred and we moved from a mofussil town like Chandannagar to Delhi. That shift was a cultural shock in every sense. From listening to the radio at a neighbour’s house to suddenly seeing television antennas on rooftops all around you, it felt like entering a different world. I did not know the language, I did not understand the social codes, and everything seemed expensive and out of reach. There was a very real sense of inferiority that came with that transition.
But if I look back, my years in Chandannagar were among the richest in terms of experience. We did not have money, but that never felt like a limitation in the way it does today. Life had a certain openness, a certain honesty to it. I still remember getting caught stealing mangoes from orchards, or standing by the Ganga during a ‘Baan’, that sudden high tide that would rush in from the Bay of Bengal. Fishermen would bring in fresh Hilsa with that tide, and we would try to persuade them to sell within what we could afford. Half a kilo of Hilsa for a few rupees in the early seventies, something that sounds almost unreal today.
Those were also the days of playing football in local tournaments, travelling to nearby towns, sometimes winning small prizes like a tiffin box which meant a lot then. We would watch World Cup footage screened at the Chandannagar library, paying a few naya paisa for a ticket. Flying kites with homemade manja, collecting fresh juice from khejur trees on winter mornings, wandering through Durga Puja pandals with friends, all of that formed a part of growing up. There was curiosity, mischief, innocence, everything mixed together in a very unstructured way.
What stands out even more in hindsight is the absence of the divisions that we talk so much about today. There was no visible sense of caste or religious conflict in our daily lives. Teachers did not push students into private tuitions for extra income. Life moved at its own pace. At the same time, there was a strong political undercurrent in Bengal. The Naxalite movement was beginning to take shape, and you would see graffiti on walls saying “Chiner Chairman amader chairman.” Globally, you were aware of America pulling out of Vietnam, and then the moment of man landing on the moon, which we recreated as a school play without fully understanding its scale.
I can go on, but what I carry with me from that time is a certain grounding. It was a simple life, but it was full of observation, and perhaps that is where the storyteller in me began to take shape without my realising it.
How did IIT Madras happen? Could you share a few pages of your classroom and field experience?
I was not a particularly studious boy, so getting into IIT Madras was not part of some grand, well thought out plan. I simply followed what my classmates were doing and appeared for the entrance examination. I got through, and before I could fully process what that meant, I found myself in Madras studying chemical engineering. My choice of the subject was equally unstructured. I had once heard someone talk about petrochemical engineering and it sounded exciting, so I assumed chemical engineering would take me there. I had no real understanding of what the discipline involved.
The campus, however, had a much deeper impact on me than the classroom. IIT exposed me to a world I had not encountered before, not just academically but culturally. One of the most significant influences came from the film club. That is where I was introduced to serious cinema, and it stayed with me. It was no longer just entertainment. It became a way of looking at life, at people, at stories. That experience quietly reinforced something that was already somewhere inside me.
At the same time, I was still dealing with a sense of inadequacy. Coming from a vernacular background, I was not comfortable with English, and in a place like IIT, that gap felt even sharper. I remember telling a senior how out of place I felt in conversations. He did not offer a lecture or advice in the usual sense. He simply asked me to start reading. I told him I did not have access to books. He handed me The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. Looking back, that gesture meant more than I realised then. It was not just about language. It was about opening a door to a different way of thinking and expressing.
So while I went through the motions of engineering, what I really carried out of IIT Madras was exposure. Exposure to ideas, to cinema, to language, and to a certain confidence that came slowly. In many ways, that phase shaped my direction more than the degree itself.
Did you have any role models, and if so, how did they influence the writer in you? You have spoken in your media interactions about Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein, M J Akbar, Arun Shourie, and Shekhar Gupta, but I would like you to dive deeper. For instance, would you rate Shourie higher than Gupta and Akbar in terms of depth of subject matter, ethics, and editorial conviction. Also, how do you rate Tarun Tejpal?
I was certainly inspired by many people, but I would not say I had a single role model that I tried to emulate. If I have to name one person who influenced my direction in a more personal way, it would be Mrinal Sen. I might not have entered the media at all if I had not seen him from close quarters. I was a great admirer of his films, and when I met him during his visits to Madras for post-production work, I was completely in awe. I remember telling him that he was like a god to me. He did not dismiss that as youthful exaggeration. He encouraged me, and that encouragement stayed. It gave a certain legitimacy to a dream that otherwise felt distant.
As far as journalists like Akbar, Shourie, Shekhar Gupta, or even Woodward and Bernstein are concerned, I see them more as influences than role models. They shaped the environment in which I came into journalism. They set benchmarks. But I would hesitate to rank one above the other. They operated in different contexts, held different positions, and brought different strengths to the table. Akbar and Shourie were editors with the power to shape editorial direction, while Shekhar Gupta was a reporter who built his reputation on ground reporting. Yet, at their best, all of them delivered what mattered most, which was credible, impactful journalism. They broke stories that had real consequences, and that is what young reporters like us were responding to.
On the question of rating them in terms of depth, ethics or conviction, I would be cautious. Those are not easy metrics, and more importantly, they are not static. Journalism is shaped by the time you are in, the pressures you face, and the choices you make within those constraints. What I took from them was not a hierarchy, but a standard. The idea that if you are in this profession, you must pursue the story with seriousness and a sense of responsibility.
My interaction with Tarun Tejpal was quite limited and very specific. He was my copy editor at one point, and he would work on my copy. He had a certain sharpness when it came to language and presentation, and I benefited from that. Beyond that, I did not have a deeper professional or personal engagement with him. Soon after, I moved out of journalism and into television and films, and our paths diverged.
I would like to know more about your Indonesian experience, as a producer of films and CEO of Northcliff Pictures.
I have spoken about the professional aspects of my Indonesian journey earlier, but what perhaps deserves mention is what that phase did to me as a person. It was a learning experience at many levels, not just in terms of work but in terms of how people look at life.
Indonesia has a very different rhythm. People there, by and large, are far more relaxed about the future. There is a certain acceptance of the present which you do not see very often in India. If you were to call them unambitious or not driven enough, they would respond with a smile and a quiet confidence that life is about being happy. It is a perspective that stays with you, whether you agree with it fully or not.
Professionally, I was handling multiple responsibilities, including international sales, which gave me the opportunity to travel widely. I attended film festivals across the world, from Cannes to Berlin to Los Angeles to Toronto. That kind of exposure was invaluable. It opened up a global view of storytelling, of how different cultures respond to narratives, and how cinema travels beyond language.
At the same time, there was a growing sense of disconnect. The kind of stories I was instinctively drawn to were not always aligned with what the local audience responded to. There were successes, including films that did very well commercially and even reached international platforms, but somewhere I felt I was not fully expressing myself. The satisfaction was not complete.
Over time, that feeling became stronger. I realised that I was more attuned to the Indian context, both in terms of content and audience. Friends back home would often tell me that the time was right to return, that Indian audiences were beginning to engage more deeply with real, grounded stories. That thought stayed with me, and eventually I decided to come back.
In many ways, Indonesia was a very important chapter. It gave me scale, exposure, and a certain distance to reflect on what I really wanted to do. And that clarity is what brought me back to India.
Looking back at your versatile career, which moments stand out as your most exhilarating highs and most instructive lows?
If I look back at my journey, it does feel like a roller coaster, and quite honestly, there have probably been more lows than highs. But that is how it has unfolded, and I would not want to smoothen it out in hindsight.
The highs are easier to identify because they come with a certain clarity. Breaking the inside story of Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination in India Today in 1991 was one such moment. It was a story of national importance, and to be able to contribute meaningfully to its understanding at that stage of my career was deeply satisfying. Then, moving into television and creating Sea Hawks at UTV in the late nineties was another defining phase. It was not just a professional achievement, it was also a creative one, something that allowed me to tell a story at scale.
Producing a film that went to the Oscars in 2012 was, of course, a very different kind of high. It brought international recognition and validated the work we were doing at that level. The following year, being part of a film that broke box office records in Indonesia showed me another side of the industry, the scale at which popular storytelling can connect with audiences. And then much later, writing 90 Days and seeing it become a bestseller was perhaps the most personal high. That was not just a professional success, it was a reaffirmation that I had found a medium that was truly my own.
The lows are less dramatic but more instructive. They are spread across decisions that did not work out the way I had hoped. There were times when I left a profession or a company without having a clear next step, and then had to deal with the uncertainty that followed. I tried to start my own production at one point without having the financial backing to sustain it, and that did not work. Moving out of UTV was another such decision. I could have stayed back and been part of its growth in feature films, something I had always wanted, but I chose a different path.
Looking back, I can see a pattern of deviation and experimentation. Some of it worked, some of it did not. There were moments when I did look for a comfort zone and did not find it. I could have stayed in journalism and perhaps risen within that system, maybe even become an editor. But that is not how it played out.
Having said that, I do not see those choices as mistakes anymore. They were part of a search, even if I did not articulate it that way at the time. What matters to me now is that I have found a certain voice in writing. It brings together everything I have done before, journalism, storytelling, observation, and gives it a form that feels complete. I do not see myself moving away from it now. At this stage of my life, the focus is on doing work that feels meaningful and has some lasting value.
How do you rate the response to your books including The Delhi Directive, from critics, readers, journalists, academicians, bureaucrats, politicians?
The response has been very encouraging, and more importantly, it has been understood in the way I had hoped it would be. With The Delhi Directive, I took a conscious call to write it as fiction while grounding it in real events and research. That approach can sometimes confuse readers or critics, but in my case, many of them saw exactly what I was trying to do. A common observation was that it reads like non-fiction, and I took that as a compliment because the intent was always to retain authenticity without being constrained by it.
Across my books, the feedback has been quite consistent. Words like well researched, authentic, lucid, engaging, emotionally gripping have come up repeatedly. Some have also pointed out that the writing does not push an agenda or try to take sides, which again was important to me. When you deal with subjects like geopolitics, national security, espionage or true crime, it is very easy to slip into a position. I wanted to stay with the story and let the reader draw their own conclusions.
What has meant the most to me is that readers from very different backgrounds have connected with the work. Journalists, bureaucrats, academicians, even people who have been part of the system in some form, have responded positively. They have felt that the material comes from a place of understanding and not just surface research. At the same time, general readers have found the books engaging enough to stay with them, which is equally important.
At the end of the day, that balance is what I was aiming for. To write something that is credible without becoming heavy, and engaging without becoming superficial. The response so far tells me that I have been able to move in that direction. I am grateful for that, and it also sets a certain expectation for what I do next.
Which of your books proved the most back-breaking in terms of research and the most fulfilling in terms of output?
It is difficult to separate the two because both 90 Days and The Delhi Directive carry decades of my engagement with the subject. These are not books that came out of a year or two of work. The groundwork had been building for a long time through reporting, conversations, and observation.
Having said that, if I have to identify one that was more demanding, it would be The Delhi Directive. The nature of the subject itself made it extremely challenging. I was dealing with the world of intelligence and covert operations, where very little is on record and even less is acknowledged. People who know things are not willing to speak easily, and even when they do, it takes time to build enough trust for them to share anything meaningful. There is almost no documentary evidence available in the public domain because most of it remains classified.
That meant the process was slow and often uncertain. You are constantly cross-checking, reading between the lines, and trying to piece together a narrative without the comfort of official confirmation. There is also a certain level of risk involved. When you are writing about subjects that governments have either denied or not spoken about, you are aware that you could draw attention or even upset powerful interests. At the same time, I was clear that the book should not take sides or appear agenda driven. It had to remain balanced and credible, otherwise the entire effort would lose its value.
In contrast, working on the biography of Dr Prashant Kumar was relatively more straightforward in terms of access. There was institutional support, and information was easier to gather. But that brought a different kind of challenge. When you are writing about a serving or recently serving police officer who is both influential and controversial, the question is not just about facts, but about approach. How do you present the story in a way that is honest, layered, and not reduced to either praise or criticism. That required its own set of decisions.
So while each book has had its own demands, The Delhi Directive stands out as the most taxing in terms of research and process. At the same time, it is also among the most fulfilling because it pushed me to work at the edge of what is possible in that space.
Looking ahead, are there any stories pressing at the door, demanding to be told?
There are many, and they keep coming. Some come from the world I have been closely associated with for years, geopolitics, national security, crime, intelligence. Some come from quieter, more personal spaces. The challenge is never about finding stories. It is about choosing which ones to commit to, because each book demands a certain investment of time and energy.
At the moment, I have a fairly clear roadmap for the next few years. There are multiple books I want to write, both in non-fiction and fiction. The non-fiction will continue to explore real events and systems that shape our world, while the fiction allows me to go deeper into characters and the emotional consequences of those events. In a way, both streams complement each other, and I see myself moving between them.
What matters to me now is not volume, but clarity. Each story should justify the time it takes, both for me and for the reader.
Any other thoughts close to your heart and mind?
At this stage, I find myself thinking less about individual successes and more about what remains after I am gone. I would like to write a book that stays. A book that people return to, not just for information or entertainment, but because it leaves something behind.
That, I think, is the real pursuit now.