Veteran journalist Ajith Pillai’s colourful career spanning nearly three decades has taken him from the murky underworld of Bombay to the icy heights of Kargil; yet, the stories he has written are only half the story. Now, for the first time, the ‘off-the-record’ stories that never found their way to print are presented in this witty and engaging memoir.
Beginning with a call from a furious Chota Shakeel, Dawood Ibrahim’s right-hand man, asking him to retract a story on ‘Bhai’ or face the consequence, Ajith takes the reader on a journey that sees him guide V.S. Naipaul to meet ‘boys’ from the underworld; follow the sensuous Silk Smitha around the city on a New Year’s eve; witness the first shots of Operation Vijay during the Kargil War; track, along with a colleague, a Brigadier accused of high treason across the country; come across embarrassed Congressmen in Kamathipura, Bombay’s red-light district; discover who was pulling the strings during Vajpayee’s tenure; and finally, coordinate the coverage of the multi-million dollar Scorpene submarine scam and the sensational Radia tapes.
Written in his trademark wry style, with real stories more entertaining than fiction, Off the Record is a testament to a journalist’s life, as well as a comment on the changing nature of the effervescent Indian media.
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