Ever since the extracts from my book began to appear in various media outlets, I have been inundated with hundreds of requests for interviews. While I have acquiesced to participate in some of them, I have found all of them lacking. None of the interviewers could come even close to the standard I deserve. So I called upon the person who set the standard when it comes to interviews in this country. The man who literally invented news journalism in India. You guessed it, ladies and gentlemen. I’m talking about me! The following is an exclusive transcript of that legendary moment in time when Karan Thapar interviewed Karan Thapar.

Karan: Thank you for those effusive words of praise, Karan. I don’t think I deserve them but I’m still grateful.

Karan: You’re welcome. As always, you never fail to surprise me with your humility.

Karan: It must be the first time in history the subject of the interview has introduced the person conducting the interview. 


Karan: I believe so.

Karan: Another feather on your cap, then. Now, I hope you realise that just because you flatter me doesn’t mean that I will go easy on you.

Karan: I would expect nothing less from you. I know you’re a consummate professional and won’t hold back!

Karan: Now, many people would think that this is quite indulgent. Interviewing yourself seems a little too far, even for you. 


Karan: Well, it’s not my fault that I couldn’t find anyone else good enough to match my intelligence and wit. Also, I’m just following the trend set by our great national leader. The difference is, he gets someone else to ask him the questions he wants to answer. I’m just cutting out the middleman!

Karan: That was a brilliant deflection! When someone points a finger at you, point one back.

Karan: 
That’s one of the tricks I learned during my time as President of the Cambridge Union.

Karan: Ah! I was wondering when you’d bring that up. Speaking of being braggadocious, one of the things apparent to anyone who reads your book is that you brag about being friends with some really terrible people. You didn’t have to let everyone know that you were close to them, yet you take some sort of perverse pleasure in name-dropping some real life villains. Should we call it a lack of self-awareness or are you really not bothered by their actions? 


Karan: Look, I know I currently am and previously have been friends with terrible people. But the fact remains that even though they might have participated in some activities and taken some decisions that might have negatively affected a large group of people, they always were nice to me, the guy who shared his huge media platform with them. In fact, I found that on many occasions they were quite eager to curry favour with me, a person from their immediate social circle. Though, to be fair, I was never able to figure out why I got this special treatment.

Karan: In one chapter, you mention a plane ride you took with Sanjay Gandhi in which he played a terrible prank on hapless villagers. Did it not occur to you how deranged that would sound to your readers? 


Karan: It did occur to me that certain anecdotes could be interpreted in the wrong way! However, I still elected to keep them in the book. That is because I want everybody to know that not only am I close friends with monstrous people, I am one myself!

Karan: I can confirm that.

Karan: One of the reasons I wrote this book was to show people that I am not just a stuffed shirt with a fancy bowtie. I am also terrible at holding people accountable for their misdeeds.

Karan: What would you say to those critics who say that journalism is just a game to you. That you actually don’t care about putting powerful people’s feet to the fire, metaphorically speaking. That being friends with them is more important to you than asking a relevant question.

Karan: If there is one thing that I’ve learned from all those folks who stopped being friends with me after I asked them some mildly difficult questions, it’s that if one wants to maintain access to powerful people, we must never ask them anything of consequence. To paraphrase a popular meme about journalism, if a person comes to you and says that it’s raining and at the same time another person approaches you to tell you that it’s not, a reporter’s job isn’t to draw false equivalence between these two opinions. A reporter’s job is to call Arun Jaitley and talk about the weather.

Karan: Well put.

Karan: Look, I would say that one shouldn’t take my interviews so seriously. Whenever I am interviewing friends or acquaintances, my only purpose is to try to make it entertaining. Both of us, the subject of the interview and I, try to trip each other up through our tough banter – nothing too harsh, though! After all, we’re all on the same side here. We have a civilized jostling match, put in a good day’s work and then both of us head off to a common friend’s party. No harm, no foul. Just a convivial conversation between two equals.

Karan: One could say that your entire book seems to have been written as an excuse to publish that last chapter in which you very subtly apologize to Narendra Modi for whatever “mysterious” transgressions you seemed to have committed.

Karan: As I said in other interviews, if I’ve done something wrong then I have no problems in apologizing. If one has inadvertently hurt another person, then one should have no hesitation in saying sorry.

Karan: But isn’t your “brand” all about being unapologetic for asking tough questions? That’s what you’ve built this entire “devil’s advocate” persona on. You ask difficult questions no one else dares to ask.  If you don’t have that…

Karan: You know what I don’t have right now? A television show. Since no one from the BJP will appear on my show, news channels don’t have any use for me. If I don’t have that platform, I might as well conduct those interviews with an empty chair in my living room while my large collection of porcelain cats look on. The other day I had to interview Yashwant Sinha. Yashwant Sinha! A man so boring a wall of drying paint watches him. That’s not how I want to spend the rest of my life!

Karan: But are you sure trading your dignity for a few crumbs of celebrity worth it? Aren’t you going to miss having self-respect?

Karan: You know what I miss? I miss the time people used to tell me “oh, we saw your interview.” Or when other journalists used to come up to me and say “looks like you’re making the headlines again” with barely hidden envy and I used to pretend to be outraged and tell them with all the faux humility I could muster “well, that means I’ve failed. A good journalist makes sure he’s never the story.” Now, people ask me why I’ve disappeared from journalism. When I tell them I still do interviews they’re shocked. And then they ask me on which channel and I say “The Wire’s YouTube Page,” they look at me with the same sort of disdain I used to have for reporters working for vernacular publications. YOU KNOW HOW THAT FEELS?

Karan: Calm down!


Karan: NO I WON’T CALM DOWN! I’M KARAN FRIGGIN THAPAR. I USED TO BE A BIG DEAL. If I called you for an interview, it meant that you’ve made it. I used to interview Prime Ministers and Presidents. Celebrities and superstars. I flew planes with Sanjay Gandhi, shared ice-cream with Benazir Bhutto! I made the Iron Lady of Poes lose her cool! I made Kapil Dev cry on international television! I clinked whiskey glasses with Ram Jethmalani. Had poha with LK Advani. Developed a taste for pan-Asian cuisine at Aung San Suu Kyi’s dinner table. I have Arun Shourie’s phone number on speed-dial!

Karan: So in these perilous times, when most Indian “news” organisations are more subservient to power than the state-run television channel, you’re willing to give up even the pretence of journalistic independence in the hope that someone in power throws a few dregs of it your way?

Karan: That’s right! I didn’t go to schools blessed with large, historic estates and picturesque views along with a student body full of legacy admissions to have to share a ramshackle studio with Vinod bloody Dua. Not only do I want to be in the news again. I want to be the news again. MAKE KARAN THAPAR RELEVANT AGAIN!

Karan: Karan Thapar, it has been a pleasure talking to you. Thank you for being here!

Karan: It’s been an honour, Karan! Thank you for having me.