Chennai | Author Timeri Murari’s new novel Chicanery is a political thriller

In his latest novel Chicanery, Chennai-based author-journalist Timeri N Murari tells us a parable for our times

Deep in the recesses of Devarshola, writer-journalist Timeri N Murari’s 1910-built ancestral house, is a file containing news snippets from across the decades. These tidbits squirrelled away from newspapers across the world feed Murari’s imagination years later and form the basis of his many novels. “I have a file full of ideas I’m yet to explore. Filmmaker Woody Allen used to have slips of paper he put in a draw and made a film on whatever he pulled out. When I was living in the US, I chanced upon a small news report in The New York Times of a man who knew he may be executed if he returned to his country. I tried to find out more but there was just that. The story stayed with me for nearly 40 years and found its way into Chicanery, a novel I started work on in early 2023,” says Murari, speaking above the snoring of his pet dogs in the parlour.

Released in September this year, Chicanery, published by Niyogi Books, is a story that “resonates with what is going on in the world”. It is the tale of a man who was once prime minister and then exiled, and who makes the dangerous crossing back into his country. What would prompt him to do so? A new attempt to regain power or love for the woman he left behind?

“I tried it as a stage play but it begged to be told as a larger story,” says Murari. “I was often intrigued why the man in the news report went back.”

Being in hot pursuit of the past has underlined much of Murari’s writing. Drawing from a childhood spent on the move thanks to his Army officer-father, Murari weaves his life as an old boy of Bishop Cotton’s, Bengaluru, and his career arc that took him to Canada, the UK (where he was among the first Indian journalists on Fleet Street) and the US, into the inordinate number of novels, non-fiction, plays, young adult adventures and pieces for television that he has written. Taliban Cricket Club, his book that headlines the lives of Afghanis, especially the women, is slated to be made into a film. “The interviews were done in 2010, but nothing seems to have changed for the people,” he says.

In Chicanery too, it is the women who worm their way into leading the plot. Plot-wise, the novel abides by the conventions of spy fiction and makes for a racy read. The locales have Cold War-era vibes although the story is situated in the present. “The rise of right-wing politics the world over, the cycle of democracy and dictatorship, anarchy and freedom, reflects on what I saw around me in North Korea, South America, in Spain, in Italy. Now cell-phones can change an election. I reflect on all this…” says Murari, adding why most characters do not have names in the novel. “Character names here define a concept. My main characters have names and back stories, while others in the periphery of the story, don’t.”

With a premise this compelling, plenty of plot twists, deft scene setting and language and research that is precise, the political thread running through the novel is gripping. “The story ends on a very different note from how it began. It’s not about power; it’s about the woman – therefore, his death was pointless. The woman was the protagonist! I have been thinking about a sequel,” says Murari. Including Foot Fetish, a well-known salon in these parts, is both a clever “Madras touch and a subtle personal affection. Those who know, know”. 

He admits that he occasionally works on two projects at a time and reads constantly but never lets that interfere with his writing. “The draft for Chicanery took a year. I type on the computer, though I correct on a printed document. To be a writer you have to be disciplined. I write from 9am to 1pm every day; that’s the only way I’ll finish the book. On some days there is no point in pushing. I write 400-500 words, sometimes its only 100, no matter what you try. At present, I’m working on another novel set in India, a woman’s story, and on my memoirs that cover the early years of how I became a novelist, working for The Guardian and ends with the writing of Field of Honour in 1981.”

Published - October 24, 2024 05:01 pm IST