Bachi Karkaria Boeken

Biography of eminent hotelier, Mohan Singh Oberoi, b. 1900.

The extraordinary life of India’s top hotelier recorded for his birth centenary Captain C.P. Krishnan Nair was a true bon vivant.He wore flamboyant linen suits, drove a Rolls-Royce, consorted with kings and dined at the finest restaurants in the world. He had certainly come a long way from his humble origins in Kannur, Kerala. As the acclaimed writer Bachi Karkaria shows in this honest, entertaining and deeply researched biography, his successes were hard won.His army career drew him into the ambit of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan. Post his army days the Captain established a roaring textile empire, becoming the biggest Indian exporter of ready-to-wear to the US. But laurels were an itchy wreath for the daring Captain.He went on to establish the Leela Hotels, named after his wife, guide and soulmate, when he was in his sixties.Captain Nair always demanded the best for his guests. He refused to give up when even most of his hotel projects got mired in seemingly insurmountable problems. An unsung hero, Captain Nair’s is the story of aspiration,passion, determination and making it big in modern India.

At lunchtime on 27 April 1959, the handsome naval commander Kawas Nanavati was told by his English wife Sylvia that she was having an affair with their flamboyant businessman-playboy friend, Prem Ahuja. Later that evening, armed with a revolver, Nanavati stormed Ahuja’s bedroom and shut the door behind him. Three gunshots were heard going off inside. Ahuja was dead. Ahuja’s murder set in motion an extraordinary public frenzy – thousands descended on the streets of Bombay chanting in favour of the hero Nanavati and the jury, swept off their feet by the dazzling naval officer in the dock, returned a ‘Not Guilty’ verdict. This trial was the death knell of the jury system in India. It hurtled a judiciary keen on preserving justice into confrontation with an executive bending to the will of hysterical crowds and tabloids and Nanavati’s powerful friends in the establishment. In this laboriously researched book – part thriller, part courtroom drama and legal history and part social portrait of post Independence Bombay – Bachi Karkaria gives a most comprehensive account of the Nanavati case and the Constitutional crisis to which it gave birth.