Maoist supremo's ascent to power kick-starts Indian author's career

While the Maoists rejoice their ascent to power with their chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal becoming the first elected prime minister of republic Nepal an Indian author believes the timing of the former guerilla leader's election to the top government post is perfect for kick-starting his career.

Anirban Roy, a 38-year-old journalist from north Indian state of Assam, who is coming up with his first book on the Maoist chief, intimately chronicling his personal life.

The book, "Prachanda: The Unknown Revolutionary", is the result of interviews with as many as 200 people who know the Maoist leader very closely, including his family members and political leaders.

Roy, who is based in Kathmandu as Diplomatic Correspondent of The Hindustan Times, says his publishers, Mandala Books, are planning a grand release of the book by the end of August in Kathmandu. The book will be translated into six languages - Hindi, Bengali, Nepali, Chinese, Italian and Spanish.

What made the Indian journalist to write a book on the Maoist leader? Roy says he was simply wondering about the lack of an authentic book on the Maoist leader who has caught so much attention of the world, but there's very little written or said about his personal life. One day, during an interview, he mentioned this to Prachanda's deputy Dr Baburam Bhattarai, who instead advised him to try to write a book.

Roy, a veterinary doctor who had visited Nepal five times between 2001 and 2006, but "didn't know a thing about Nepalese politics at that time." It was only after April 2006 when he was sent by his paper to cover the pro-democracy movement that he became familiar with Nepalese politics.

"Everywhere I went, people would ask me, have you met Prachanda?" reminisces Roy, "I stayed in Nepal for a month and friends and relatives would call me up asking the same question. I realised, here was a man who was the centre of all attraction."

Roy, who is planning a second book on Nepal, is confident of the first book finding good number of readers, as it chronicles so many unknown aspects of Pushpa Kamal Dahal, more popularly known by his nom de guerre Prachanda, who is perhaps the only popularly elected prime minister in world history.

"No one knows, for instance" says Roy, "that the robust Prachanda of today was born premature." nepalnews.com Aug 19 08