Did you know? Ravi Subramanian's financial thriller had crooked diamond merchant named 'Nirav Choksi'

In a tête-à-tête with Moneycontrol Ravi Subramanian took us through his book, and told us how his book is not about Nirav Modi or Mehul Choksi.

Excerpts—

Q. How many DMs and twitter feeds have you suddenly got now that people think you also knew about the fraud and wrote about it in your book?

A. In fact I have been stumped by the sudden interest in the book. I have written ten books and In The Name of God was my first book which was not a banking thriller. And Lo and Behold it becomes the toast of the nation because of a character in the book being named Nirav Choksi. The tweets, retweets, sms messages, WhatsApp etc run into thousands. I got calls from people from US/middle east etc telling me the book is a subject of discussion in their WhatsApp groups. I found that amusing.

I got a dozen calls from media houses for coming on television to talk about the book. I politely turned them down because I felt so wannabe to go on television and say, ‘I wrote a book on the Padmanabhaswamy Temple in Thiruvananthapuram, which has a character called Nirav Choksi, who is a diamond trader, but not in anyway related to the Nirav Modi+Mehul Choksi combine or the PNB scam.. but please buy my book and read.” So I didn’t.

I would tell all of them to read the book and after that if they still want to discuss it with me, I am happy to do so. A few TV channels carried the story despite that, thereby fanning the fake story. I had to eventually put out a firm tweet last night telling people that this is not about the PNB scam and if they buy the book and read expecting a revelation on the PNB scam, they are going to be disappointed. It is nevertheless a good story, a nice thriller and one of my best. The tweets from unrelated people trying to get political mileage were very irritating, but I guess one has to deal with it.

Q. Did the publishers get in touch with you to report sudden renewed interest in the book?

A. It was a once in a blue moon kind of an event, so the publishers did get in touch to discuss the way ahead. But we both agreed that we need to use this opportunity to promote the book on its merit, without being exploitative.

Q. The million dollar question-Who is this mystery man Nirav Choksi in your book? Does this man have any resemblance with Nirav Modi or Mehul Choksi? Why this name- is the question almost everyone wants you to answer.

A. When I name a character in my book, I normally look around for names which fit the personality of a character. When I was naming the jeweller in the book, I was looking for a classy name which represents a Gujarati jeweller who is flamboyant, stylish, powerful, middle aged and someone who has made it big in life. Google, Facebook  twitter, magazines get scanned before I arrive at a name. After all this, I settled on Nirav Choksi. Isn’t it a name which completely represents the personality of the character I wanted in the book. Eventually, as it turned out to be, it looks like a name that sold a million books.

Q. Is Nirav Choksi a complete fictitious character given your Choksi is also a rich and powerful jeweler much like his real life counterpart? There is also mention of places like Antwerp in your book and coincidentally we are writing a lot of Antwerp too in those bios about Modi-too much coincidence? What do you think?

A. Nirav Choksi is a completely fictional character. No resemblance to anyone living or dead. Choksi is a very common surname in the jewellery trade and among gujaratis. Nirav too is a common name. As far as places like Antwerp etc are concerned, its natural. Can you write a jewellery story without taking the stories to places where 80-90% of the global diamond trade happens. Diamond trade and Antwerp are synonymous. Infact Antwerp is less of a coincidence than the name Nirav Choksi is.

Q. The book however is suddenly in the limelight in social media---what do you have to say?

A. A point I wanted to mention is that lot of the tweets and retweets were coming from politicians and possibly people with political affinities on both sides. I found that quite irritating. While those who have read the book will relate to the name because Nirav Choksi was a jeweller in the book and obviously Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi are household names, while those who have not read the book will blindly retweet and forward WhatsApp messages. I would implore people to read the book and find out for themselves, if it is about the scam. While they will be disappointed to find out that it is not about the scam or Nirav Modi, I can assure you one helluva ride.