There are a dozen ways an interviewee can react when you provoke him a little.
Nervous, I arrived well in time for the meeting. While waiting in the hotel lobby and scanning the day’s newspapers that had carried detailed reports about the ongoing India-Australia cricket match being played at Mohali, a thought struck me: Jeffrey Archer was an ardent cricket fan. I remember reading somewhere about his passion for English county cricket, having played the game in some capacity in his growing-up years and his subsequent admiration for players from the subcontinent like Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid.
Archer looked me straight in the eye and got up. Without batting an eyelid, he lay on the floor and started to brush the carpet. Wielding an imaginary towel and mop, Archer continued the act till it reached my legs, even as I wondered in trepidation how this interview was going to pan out. Archer was referring to how Indian groundsmen sweep and sponge off rainwater from the playing arena, taking off from that first day of the rain-hit Test match at Mohali.
“This,” he thundered at a hapless me, “This is how you wipe your cricket grounds. “Rubbish,” he said, in a thick English accent, “Mops and buckets…rubbish. British author and former politician Jeffrey Archer hands over a cricket ball before umpiring a Victorian-era costume themed cricket match in 2013 | Photo Credit: Matt Dunham I let out a weak smile as Jeffrey Archer said: “Shall we begin the interview?”