By Karan Thapar

I suppose you could say he was clean looking but that would be an inadequate description. When he first walked into my office I was also struck by his confidence and his affability. It’s not easy to affect such poise when you are presenting yourself for an interview. Yet there wasn’t a trace of nerves or diffidence in his bearing.

It was the early 1990s but I am not sure of the exact year. I think he had just finished university or may be he had just returned from one of those television courses in America. Shobhana Bhartia, who at the time was my boss, had asked me to meet him. His father, who I have known since I was a child, had also put in a word. My curiosity aroused I was eager to meet this young man.

“How can I help?” I asked, once the introductions were over. I meant my question to sound reassuring but I don’t know if I succeeded.

“I’d like a job, Sir” came the firm reply. Asking for employment is never easy. Most of the time you want it so badly your own emotions or tension botch the attempt. But the young man in front of me was in full control of himself. He spoke simply, effectively and purposefully. The use of the word sir – a habit he still has despite the lapse of almost a decade – was a nice touch of conventional formality. It betrayed no deference or false humility.

I wish I had said yes. I could have and all I would have had to do was telephone Shobhana Bhartia to convince her. It wouldn’t have been a problem. But at the time we genuinely did not need an extra hand and I lacked the foresight to grab the young talent fate had offered me before others did. Lack of discernment compounded my initial lack of judgement.

Thus it was that Vikram Chandra joined Newstrack and embarked on a career as a television journalist. I would like to believe that Eyewitness might have propelled him further and faster but, to be brutally honest, it’s well nigh impossible to do better than he has done. If, like me, you are addicted to Star News you will know that he’s one of the real stars of the eponymous television channel – perhaps even the star – and if you don’t watch Star News then I suggest you immediately switch on and see for yourself. You won’t be disappointed.

But what I did not know then – and would not have believed if I had not found out for myself – is that Vikram is also a great storyteller. This is not a quality intrinsic to television journalism. Most of us hacks who write to footage and other people’s sound-bites merely devise linking sentences. Our language may have structure but it has precious little style. We convey meaning but rarely do we evoke sentiment.

Now read the following paragraph describing the play of sunlight on the trees of the Kashmir valley as summer settles over Srinagar. It’s from Vikram’s novel ‘The Srinagar Conspiracy’ which is officially published on Wednesday the 18th :

“It was a summer painted by the sun in a hundred shades of gold. The soft light of dawn touched the treetops with a pale yellow gold, each leaf sparkling with its own highlights. In the mid-morning the brassy gold of the mustard fields waved at the farmers who rejoiced at the unexpectedly good harvest. And in the evenings the flaming red and gold of the sunset over the Dal brought lovers and honeymooners out in the shikaras for pleasure rides, and they sat back in their seats, trailing their hands in the water. It was the perfect experience in a perfect land.”

There’s a certain magic in that description which goes far beyond the clever use of words or the profound conjunction of thoughts. It’s the magic of writing. It’s what grips the mind and sharply focuses the eye when you are reading a good book. It’s what makes the pages turn faster. It’s what keeps you reading late into the night, reluctant to put the book down even though it’s past 2.00 in the morning. And Vikram has it.

I won’t lie and claim I read the book at one go. I didn’t. It took me several days. But there was a night when I stayed up till three. That was the night I discovered Vikram’s facility with the english language. It’s present on every page although there are several where it gets buried under the burden of the story it has to tell. At first I did not realise this but once I did I spotted something else as well. Vikram’s language – and therefore his style – is most powerful when he is tracing

human relationships. The way he writes of his characters, their little gestures, furtive glances or suppressed emotions, invests them with layers of meaning. Then his words tug at your heartstrings and the pages turn faster.

Where the book is less successful is in actually thrilling you. In fact there would be no need to do so but for the claim the publishers make on the back cover where they call it a thriller. Like Frederick Forsythe’s The Day of the Jackal Vikram’s book is about a denouement that never comes to pass. The thrill lies in the planning and its ultimate avoidance. Forsythe pulled it off because that’s all there was to his book. But in Vikram’s case, because he has more to offer, he is, paradoxically, less able to narrowly thrill. At least not in the sense of a thriller.

I would suggest that Vikram write another book but this time of the sort he likes to read. I don’t know for sure what tomes lie by his bedside but I can safely guess that a man who writes with such power of description could not be satisfied with John Grisham or Tom Clancy. And when he does – I refuse to shelter behind the silly conjunctive if – it will be a great book.

At that point Star News will be in grave danger of losing its best anchor although the literary world could witness the rising of a new star.