Guessing games have indeed begun: Seema Goswami

Senior journalist, columnist with HT Brunch, and now, author, Seema Goswami has donned many hats in her illustrious career. Her latest offering is a novel — Race Course Road — set in the political annals of the Capital. That, the assassination of a Prime Minister is one of the parallel tracks, is a coincidence. “It is, at the end of the day, a work of fiction,” she says. We have a chat with her about journey, research that went into the book and more. Excerpts:

Race Course Road is a crime thriller, a genre that’s miles away from your sliceoflife writings. Where did the idea come from?

I started off in journalism in the late 80s as a political writer. While working for Sunday magazine, I covered a few General Elections, interviewed Prime Ministers such as VP Singh and Chandrashekhar on the first day they assumed office at South Block and had one-onone interactions with top political leaders like (also exPM) Atal Bihari Vajpayee. And then, of course, there was the day-to-day political reporting and analysis that I did every week for the magazine. So, placing my novel in the world of Indian politics made perfect sense for

I have tried to recreate the political and media landscape that exists today. But I have done so by creating my own world.

SEEMA GOSWANI AUTHOR

me, even though these days most readers are more familiar with my writings in Spectator and my ‘slice-of-life’ column in Brunch. But politics is where my journalistic journey began.

What kind of research went into writing the book?

A fair amount. I wanted to give readers an inside look into how the Prime Minister’s House on Race Course Road — or Lok Kalyan Marg as it has now been renamed — functions, what the security set up is like, how many bungalows there are within the complex, where the PM lives and works. And while I had some knowledge of this because of my familiarity with the complex which I had visited over the years, I still needed to pick the brains of ministers, politicians, bureaucrats (both retired and serving) to fill in the blanks. As for the details about Author Seema Goswami’s book is set in the political annals of the Capital electoral politics and how the government works, that didn’t require too much research, given that I had already covered those areas in a journalistic capacity over the years.

Given that the book has multiple characters from politics, media, etc., has the guessing game started?

Judging by my Twitter direct messages, yes, the guessing games have indeed begun! But I can’t say this enough: none of the characters is based on real people. I have, of course, tried to recreate the political and media landscape that exists today. But I have done so by creating my own world, peopled with my own characters, using them to tell a story that is as much a political thriller as it is a human drama. Any resemblance to any person alive or dead is strictly coincidental!

Would you like to see a silverscreen adaptation of the book? If yes, any actors you’d want to be cast?

Of course, I would! There would be nothing more satisfying than to see the characters I created come to life on the silver screen. As for casting, well I think actor Kareena Kapoor Khan would make a great Asha Devi!