Celebrated columnist and author, Bachi Karkaria will discuss her critically acclaimed bestseller, In Hot Blood: The Nanavati Case That Shook India. On 27 April 1959, on Bombay's posh Malabar Hill, a Parsi naval commander, Kawas Nanavati, shot dead Prem Ahuja, his English wife Sylvia’s Sindhi lover. Three bullets in fewer than three minutes, but the incredible twists and turns of the trial held the nation in thrall. The story remains part of urban mythology, the basis of three films. This was India’s first upper-class crime of passion, setting off unprecedented public frenzy fanned by the tabloid Blitz. It ended the jury system. It set the now-familiar pattern of the rich and powerful trying to subvert the course of justice. A case which began in an adulterous bed ended up needing a Constitution bench to decide on the conflicting powers of judiciary and executive; it even obliged Prime Minister Nehru to intervene. As social drama, it pitted aristocracy against arriviste. The setting, Bombay, infused the tale with its own glittering legend. Karkaria’s rigorously researched, page-turner for the first time questions the abiding cliches.
Bachi Karkaria is an acknowledged game-changer in Indian journalism, a widely followed columnist, international media trainer, best-selling author and social media influencer. She was the first Indian board member of the World Editors Forum. She is Festival Director of The Times of India Litfest, Mumbai, now and a top-drawer caravanserai of ideas discussed by the world's best from diverse fields. Her latest book, In Hot Blood: The Nanavati Case That Shook India (2017) is a runaway critical and commercial success. Dare to Dream, her 1992 biography of MS Oberoi remains a bestseller. Other books include Mills, Molls and Moolah, Behind The Times, Mumbai Masti, and The Cake That Walked. Times Books has published two collections of 'Erratica' , her 25-yearlong satirical column in the Times of India. Ms Karkaria is a Jefferson Fellow of the East West Centre, Honolulu, and recipient of the international Mary Morgan-Hewitt Award for Lifetime Achievement.