Surging ahead

Former national swimming champion, journalist and author Geeta Anand talks about her book The Cure, and her journey so far

Geeta Anand is the Mumbai-based much-feted author of The Cure, (published by Random House) a riveting book that tells "the true story that inspired the movie 'Extraordinary Measures'". It stars the redoubtable Harrison Ford, but Geeta is no mere speck in the distance, or the quiet author who wrote the book and faded into anonymity.

Now a senior writer with the Wall Street Journal, Geeta has done a lot of things, and all, her own way. Once a national swimming champion, she now makes a splash with her pen. "I set out to write a book that will have a strong narrative, not an academic book that would bore people. I covered bio-tech as part of my journalistic beat. I wrote on pharmaceuticals too, and came across John Crowley on my beat. I wrote a story on him back in 2001, and a couple of articles. I found the story rich, fascinating, with so much drama, intrigue, that I had to have it as a book."

So, her journalistic credentials helped shape the book? "Well, I used the same set of skills, the same channels, but, while writing the book I had to learn to be slow. I realised it is a different type of writing. When I sent my first draft to the publishers, my editor asked me to make it twice as long. He told me the reader needed to slow down, ponder, reflect; he needed detailing. So, I worked on that, but I was always certain that the book has to have a certain kind of momentum."

Full report here Hindu