Book review: Bullets and Bylines by Shyam Bhatia

This is more a brief take than review.

Bullets and Bylines (Speaking Tiger publications), veteran journalist`s Shyam Bhatia`s accounts from conflict zones, contains one particular story which, for this reader, was worth the price of the book.

On a visit to Tehran after Khomeini has consolidated his grip inside the country, Bhatia keeps a low profile as do all foreigners, but is desperate to meet and interview someone who matters in this new set-up. This looks about as possible as finding snow in the desert,  though minor ministers are  accessible to the foreign press. And then along comes an unshaven, youngish Iranian who speaks  excellent English and drives  a Cadillac cab. Tajrish Mansur becomes  Bhatia`s dedicated cabbie and they get along very well.

One day,  the cabbie  asks the journalist why he is confining himself to small potatoes in terms of breaking stories. What can I do, interview Khomeini, asks Bhatia facetiously.

And the next day, he`s at a small detached house standing under  a balcony and there on the balcony,  appears none other than Iran`s Imam, the Ayatollah Khomeini. Bhatia gets his scoop.

Some days later the cabbie asks Bhatia, anyone else you want to interview? Oh yes, replies Bhatia without batting an eyelid. Rafsanjani. And at 9 am the next morning, Shyam Bhatia is actually interviewing Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani in the latter`s office.

A few months later Bhatia is back in Tehran and trying to locate his erstwhile cab driver. No one picks up the phone and when Bhatia goes to the headquarters of the man`s company offices, everyone there denies there was ever a man by this name there.

Tajrish Mansur and his Cadillac had disappeared off the streets of Tehran.

Just the kind of tale you relish in a book about encounters strange, tense and illuminating,  with people famous and not- so- famous. This book delivers  on all counts.

Then there`s Bhatia`s take on the Arab-Irael conflict: is it competing nationalisms  or communal divisions? If Israel didn’t exist, would Iraq, Syria, Jordan or Lebanon disintegrate into a patchwork of competing interests that had nothing to do with modern political boundaries? Bhatia posits his understanding of matters in this peace-less zone in a most convincing manner but to get to the core of that, you need to read his book.