Subir Roy: When friends do us proud

Finding parking space on Kolkata's Park Street with its classy shops and restaurants is nearly impossible. So I cheated - I drove into Park Hotel, handed over the keys for valet parking and entered the lobby, only to exit on to the street reached through the hotel's coffee shop. Then 10 paces brought me to the Oxford Bookstore, where you should be seen if you want to be tagged classy and literate.

There was no time to browse, despite loads of books being offered on discount, for I had to quickly go to the mezzanine gallery and occupy one of the 50-odd chairs to witness the launch of Sahara: The Untold Story, which had made history even before hitting the stands.

I could vividly remember the author Tamal Bandyopadhyay on the phone a few months ago sounding distraught. He had just had to make a quick trip from Mumbai to Kolkata that had cost him over Rs 40,000. A little more of this and I sensed he would be financially in dire straits. But more than the money it was the harassment. After having solidly worked on the book there was this Calcutta High Court order that could send it straight from cradle to grave.

The book was on the Sahara empire, the deposit-taking group that had friends in the highest places and was as visible as the Indian cricket team - but who its millions of depositors were, as the stock market regulator found out, remained a mystery.

Mr Bandyopadhyay himself had gone by the rule book, having sought and obtained a long interview with Subrata Roy - the head of the empire and currently in Tihar jail - which formed perhaps the juiciest part of the book and made for great listening when it was read out aloud at the launch. Mr Roy's sweeping claims and his equally sweeping diversionary tactics bemused the audience and explained why Sahara, after having got the chance to give its version and knowing that every fact was backed by documentary evidence, stalled the publication by approaching the Calcutta High Court although it is headquartered in Lucknow.

When I left after a good cup of tea I was bemused at what a good turn Sahara had done the book by first securing a stay on publication for defamation, then relenting, with a disclaimer in the bag - in the interest of "a journalist's freedom", no less - thereby making it an instant bestseller. Clearly, my friend needed all the royalty he could earn. Or else why would he think paying over Rs 40,000 for a round trip that was nearly ruining him, despite having risen to the top of the profession?

No sooner had this launch passed than came an SMS from Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, announcing the launch of his book, Gas Wars: Crony Capitalism and the Ambanis. The venue for this could not be more different. The Centre for Studies in Social Sciences is set amidst the placid east Kolkata wetlands, where during the rains after nightfall it is the frogs and the crickets that are the soundtrack, not the popular bands of Park Street. The audience was equally different. There was no attempt to sound well read. They were well read. None could utter a line of fact without preceding it with a line of theoretical contextualising.

Mr Guha Thakurta was in the same game. His target couldn't have been bigger, none other than Reliance Industries and Mukesh Ambani; and the theme equally so - how the government was being cheated of revenue and the country's natural resources siphoned off with impunity.

The book got written the same way as the Sahara one: do all the legwork, get all the documents to substantiate every fact and, for good measure, talk to the company to take their version. He had even gone on a helicopter trip organised by the company to get the look and feel of an offshore well. And in return he had received several intimidating legal missives hotly disputing and questioning the narrative. There was one difference though. Reliance had not sought to actually block the publication, maybe because there was no separate publisher; the author had himself published the book.

I was singing as I walked out after downing a cup of much cheaper tea. The Indian media has been in the doghouse, be it over the 24-hour news channel tamasha or paid news. In contrast, look at how the Pakistani media has been fighting for and snatching the freedoms that Indians took for granted. Both the books do Indian journalism proud, extending the boundaries of public knowledge. They take on the mighty, questioning the legality and fairness of their doings, and take pains to let the target have its say. And the personal bit was that both had been my colleagues at some time and have remained good friends.

subirkroy@gmail.com