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.
