Off the Record

[Ajith s book] is the first full account I have seen between hard covers which is exclusively about a journalist s adventures and journeys in the field... An extraordinary first rough draft of history , a portraitof India from the 80s to the present time. Vinod Mehta Ajith Pillai s account of his journalistic odyssey covers the period of India s Great Transformation from the 1980s to the present. He does so with incisive wit and insight into a breathtaking range of issues. Thisought to be a handbook for all aspiring journalists, since Pillai is an enemy of sycophantic corporate ideology and craven submissiveness to wealth and power which characterize most of today s celebritywriters. Jeremy Seabrook, British author and columnistIn a journalist s career, the best stories can seldom be published 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 reports he has written are only half the story. Now, for the first time, the off-the-record experiences 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 the boys from the underworld; follow the sensuous Silk Smitha around Bombay 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; stumble upon embarrassed Congressmen in Kamathipura, Bombay s red-light district; discover who was actually pulling the strings during Vajpayee s tenure as PM; and coordinate the coverage of the multimillion dollar Scorpene submarine scam and the sensational Radia tapes.Written with Ajith s trademark wry humour, these real stories, often more entertaining than fiction, are a testament to a journalist s life, as well as a comment on the changing nature of the effervescent Indianmedia.