“The War That Made R&AW”
July 2021
A previous couple of months had been terrible. Barely survived the 2nd wave of the deadly virus in India and my body had been weak. July was meant to return to the work zone and explore. I found myself standing at a metro station meeting this new person for the first time and the first destination we hit is a bookstore.
I heard the news of the closure of this place and truth be told, it was heart-wrenching. I had spent a good time at this place when I was in college. Just a day prior, I learnt that they are back and running in the same location and boom! The new person and I found ourselves parsing through the shelves.
This time, this place had a different vibe. Ample sunlight, gorgeous view of the road leading to lush green gardens of Lodhi and fragrance of power zones of Lutyens’.
I did not come here with an intent to buy. I never enter a bookstore with one until I start looking at books that have been on my list for years.
One such was The War that Made Raw. It was a new launch and a book narrating the tale of one of the Indian legends (and my hero) Sh RN Kao.
The server at the main desk said one last copy is available and neither I nor the staff could find it. If you ask the new person, you’ll know I was running around searching for it like a kid in a candy store looking for their favourite flavor.
..and then someone shouted from a corner. “It’s here!”
I took home 4 books that day. This one included. Read it in one go and the wannabe filmmaker in me did not just read but played it like an action thriller.
I loved the book. What more? I got in touch with the writers through Instagram. Anusha and Sandeep, a filmmaker couple living in Mumbai were kind enough to have a quick chat. Needless to say, I had questions and thanks to Anusha, she agreed to answer them.
If you are a reader and wonder about the process of writing a book as good as ‘The War That Made R&AW’, take a look at excerpts of our conversation.
Take notes and learn from the learned woman.
- How did you two start?
Sandeep and I were in Kolkata learning direction and scriptwriting at Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute. Kolkata is a city of most of 1971 war and Bangladeshi refugee stories. Eventually, we started picking more stories and found ourselves in a rabbit hole. No one had ever made a good film out of it. Further, we realized that the RAW was primarily built around this war. We talked to Mr Hussain Zaidi about the ample research we had and what to do with it?
It was him who suggested writing a book. Initially, we laughed it off wondering it is not that simple but he asked us to give it a shot. here we are! :)
Here, Sandeep makes a valid point. He mentions that “Indians are not culturally aligned to talk about our war history. West does! They have stories from World War I/II very much alive but Indians do not talk much about 62, 65, 71 and other wars. We had a popular film like Border once but no one had written about war to make it popular literature.
While we were not sure if it will even be published but it happened and we are seeing a good response!”
2. When did you decide that you are going to take this project?
We decided to write this in 2019. And it took us around one and half years of writing and research to arrive at a presentable draft.
3. Browsing past bibliography, the hard work is evident. I see a lot of news reports from the USA, India, Pak and Bangladesh mentioned here. Also are a few notes and articles from different people. I am curious about how the research on this book started? Please consider sharing a few words on that episode of this project.
“There are lots of books on the 1971 war and on R&AW. But none that link the two. So we started reading up a lot on this. And it was like going into a rabbit hole of information. We started reading whatever we could access, took what we needed and discarded the rest. But it was a long process and we had a research assistant on board Yogini Roygaga who helped us with this.”
4. Tell me a little about your experience of writing this book. We know what you learnt about the world of espionage by reading this book but what are the things that you learnt personally about yourself, your team and the world of publishing a book?
“This is a very long answer to write. But briefly — we learnt that all you need is the drive to narrate a story and a vision for how it would unfold. The rest can be learnt on the go.”
5. Any words for the reader?
Just plunge into it and hopefully, you will find it thrilling and enjoy the ride.
If you are interested in learning more about this book, Anusha and Sandeep has talked in detail about it in this YouTube video
Interestingly, Anusha is also co-founder of Bhartiya Digital Party, a Marathi digital media channel that revolutionized the vernacular content.
