Troublemaker

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Before he wrote Bunker 13, Aniruddha Bahal had an extraordinary career as an investigative reporter with the controversial website Tehelka, best known for a sting operation that caught several Indian defense officials on the take. TIME talked with Bahal about his transition from journalism to fiction.

TIME: Tehelka means "sensation" in Hindi, and the site has lived up to its name. Your most sensational story came in 2001, when you filmed government officials taking bribes.

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Bahal: It took eight months of undercover work. We portrayed ourselves as arms dealers selling hand-held thermal imagers and worked our way up the chain from low-level clerks to generals and political leaders. It had a huge impact. Everyone knew that such corruption existed, but it was the first time there were live images of officials accepting cash bribes.

TIME: The defense minister was forced to resign, but then the government cracked down on Tehelka.

Bahal: The government just couldn't believe that journalists would be foolish enough to do such a big story without an ulterior motive. They tried to blame the whole dotcom crash on us! They scared away our investors. At one point I had 10 bodyguards assigned to me. After a while, it became distasteful.

TIME: The book has a pervasive American feel—where did that come from?

Bahal: The book deliberately has an American tone. It's very trendy now with the upper-middle class in India to pick up the American vernacular. All of my favorite authors are Americans from the '50s and '60s, people like J.D. Salinger, Joseph Heller and Jack Kerouac, even Tom Wolfe.

TIME: Are you taking up fiction full-time?

Bahal: Tehelka is defunct now, but I don't want its spirit to die. Journalism is too much of a rush for me to give it up.