Troublemaker

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...