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A Taste for Trouble: Memories from Another Time
ANIRUDDHA BAHAL has spelt trouble for the Establishment for as long as he can even remember. As a boy of barely fifteen, he ran away from home, all the way from Allahabad to Bombay returning a week later, chastened and penniless, but with valuable lessons learnt. As a journalist, he transformed the definition and boundaries of reporting with the risks he took and the stories he chased down. And he paid the price for it. As a writer, his first novel won him international recognition as well as the Bad Sex in Fiction Award, handed to him by no less a personage than Sting. As an entrepreneur, he went against the grain in setting up an investigative news portal at a time when speaking truth to power was no longer on the agenda of media houses. Over the years, this restless, mischievous boy from a village in Uttar Pradesh has come to epitomise the rough and tumble of political journalism in New Delhi. What does such a man see and remember when he looks back? Of people, incidents, turning points, the disappointments and the triumphs, both personal and professional? Some memories, Bahal says, are better left buried, but A Taste For Trouble brings together those that continue to keep him anchored in the present and hopeful about the future.
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Published January 25, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 20, 2021
Book Title: A Taste for Double
Author: Aniruddha Bahal
Format: Kindle
My Review:
After the 1992 scam, it was the match-fixing scam that popped after yesteryear cricketer Manoj Prabhakar's interview. This made a split in the cricket world more wide open. I was a school student, and I was not aware of what a scam is and what a sting operation means. The investigation was done by the Tehelka team. It was a surprising and shocking phase to all the Indians as Tehelka exposed many other powerful people like political leaders and business people. Tehelka was the most talked about thing back in the early 2000s. The new millennium started with a promising start to clean and bring up a corruption-free country. The Tehelka team also had another strong individual, Aniruddha Bahal, the author of this book - A Taste for Double.
Inside the book:
This book by Aniruddha Bahal as quoted by him is written during the lockdown. As the lockdown allowed everyone to sneak inside their conscience and cleanse the minds, with many wandering thoughts and memories, travelling back to roots, amid the uncertainties of the time, this book is a reflection of his memory and life.
In the book, author Aniruddha talks about his childhood and relationships. He says that he left home in Allahabad for Bombay at a very young age without informing his family. It was a student from Iran who helped him go back home.
The book is divided into three parts, where each part has many chapters. It is Part-II which has the most interesting parts of his life. On page 130, the birth and Genesis of Tehelka.com is explained.
Bahal says:
"Within a few months of starting up, Tehelka establishes a reputation for excellent reviews of arts and culture, as well as political and social analysis. The attempt is to try and break new ground in every area and to exploit the innate elasticity of the medium to do long-form interviews and stories (as is seldom possible in traditional journalism). Our tagline—‘News. Views. All the juice.'—sums up the ambition. In no time, a terrific array of Indian writers in English—both established and upcoming—from across the world begin to write regularly for the site. Among the writers regularly contributing to Tehelka are Amitava Kumar, Dom Moraes, Farrukh Dhondy, Kiran Nagarkar and Manjula Padmanabhan. Dom Moraes becomes a regular visitor to our office along with his wife, Sarayu."
As soon as I completed reading this, I visited the Cobrapost website, which is Bahal's creation. The same zeal and enthusiasm are seen. In one of the news sites after the book's launch, he quoted that 'India is hardly now a place where you can be confident of judicial protection after doing a story that exposes corruption, political parties and leaders. Courts aren't as fastidious in protecting journalists, RTI practitioners and whistleblowers from the prosecution of a state that has become unhinged, he says.'
When I read this and match it with some of the news channels and websites that provide news, in the name or TRP and to lead the press industry, is journalism changing its shape? Will it be again only the news or it will ever be just breaking news and exclusive footage!
Final Verdict
A journalist's riveting memoir
Rating:
4/5
Author: Aniruddha Bahal
Format: Kindle
My Review:
After the 1992 scam, it was the match-fixing scam that popped after yesteryear cricketer Manoj Prabhakar's interview. This made a split in the cricket world more wide open. I was a school student, and I was not aware of what a scam is and what a sting operation means. The investigation was done by the Tehelka team. It was a surprising and shocking phase to all the Indians as Tehelka exposed many other powerful people like political leaders and business people. Tehelka was the most talked about thing back in the early 2000s. The new millennium started with a promising start to clean and bring up a corruption-free country. The Tehelka team also had another strong individual, Aniruddha Bahal, the author of this book - A Taste for Double.
Inside the book:
This book by Aniruddha Bahal as quoted by him is written during the lockdown. As the lockdown allowed everyone to sneak inside their conscience and cleanse the minds, with many wandering thoughts and memories, travelling back to roots, amid the uncertainties of the time, this book is a reflection of his memory and life.
In the book, author Aniruddha talks about his childhood and relationships. He says that he left home in Allahabad for Bombay at a very young age without informing his family. It was a student from Iran who helped him go back home.
The book is divided into three parts, where each part has many chapters. It is Part-II which has the most interesting parts of his life. On page 130, the birth and Genesis of Tehelka.com is explained.
Bahal says:
"Within a few months of starting up, Tehelka establishes a reputation for excellent reviews of arts and culture, as well as political and social analysis. The attempt is to try and break new ground in every area and to exploit the innate elasticity of the medium to do long-form interviews and stories (as is seldom possible in traditional journalism). Our tagline—‘News. Views. All the juice.'—sums up the ambition. In no time, a terrific array of Indian writers in English—both established and upcoming—from across the world begin to write regularly for the site. Among the writers regularly contributing to Tehelka are Amitava Kumar, Dom Moraes, Farrukh Dhondy, Kiran Nagarkar and Manjula Padmanabhan. Dom Moraes becomes a regular visitor to our office along with his wife, Sarayu."
As soon as I completed reading this, I visited the Cobrapost website, which is Bahal's creation. The same zeal and enthusiasm are seen. In one of the news sites after the book's launch, he quoted that 'India is hardly now a place where you can be confident of judicial protection after doing a story that exposes corruption, political parties and leaders. Courts aren't as fastidious in protecting journalists, RTI practitioners and whistleblowers from the prosecution of a state that has become unhinged, he says.'
When I read this and match it with some of the news channels and websites that provide news, in the name or TRP and to lead the press industry, is journalism changing its shape? Will it be again only the news or it will ever be just breaking news and exclusive footage!
Final Verdict
A journalist's riveting memoir
Rating:
4/5
March 2, 2021
Aniruddha Bahal broke open two of the most important scandals in the last 25 years. The first was the match-fixing affair in cricket, the second was the investigation that shed light on corruption at highest levels of the NDA government between 1999-2004. Bahal was also harassed for years for his work, having had to do the rounds of courts. He also needed police security for about 8 years.
Bahal also managed to have a lot of fun as a journalist.
All these experiences are laid out in detail in this book. A must-read for anyone interested in journalism or how democracies can be derailed.
Bahal also managed to have a lot of fun as a journalist.
All these experiences are laid out in detail in this book. A must-read for anyone interested in journalism or how democracies can be derailed.
April 27, 2022
The personal stories from his childhood were cute. But the book takes a more serious turn as the author begins to describe his Tehalka days. Independent journalism is under attack from right wing politics in India- becomes pretty evident from the chronology in this book. Quite depressing.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews