Tarun Tejpal has an uncanny way of landing on his feet. He has been, variously, journalist and publisher and the man who taught Indians the power of the hidden camera. Now, he has turned author with a book that has been described by a reviewer as, ?a treatise on the Indian Penile Code?.

Tejpal has travelled a long distance in the last few years and been through ups and downs. He was dragged through the courts by the BJP government for the sting operation run by his pathbreaking news website Tehelka.com that forced the resignation of former Defence Minister George Fernandes.

Then, he launched a newspaper version of Tehelka, with great fanfare ? and with a totally novel funding scheme ? the money ranging from Rs 500 to Rs 1 lakh was raised through subscriptions from fans and well-wishers.

Through it all, Tejpal has been labouring to bring out his first novel about the erotic journey of a couple obsessed with each other. The Alchemy of Desire has received mixed reviews but Tejpal declares that he isn?t bothered by them. ?A safe book doesn?t excite me. The mandate is to push boundaries,? he says.

But Tejpal is proud of one review. Sir Vidya Naipaul praised it in superlative terms, declaring, ?At last ? a new and brilliantly original novel from India.?

For the author himself, the book has been a refuge from his pitched battle with the state. It was written in 16 months during 2002-?03 when the battle over the Tehelka tapes was raging. He says, ?For 20 years I have been trying to intuit the tone of the book, a book that would capture the chaos, the anarchy, the teeming quality of India. And at the same time be able to tell an intimate story. In the most difficult hour of my life, the tone came to me, and I began to write.?

Perhaps that doesn?t tell the entire story of how Tejpal and Tehelka were pursued by the last government. Tejpal must, indeed, have been one of the most relieved men in the country when the Congress emerged victorious from the last election. There are still scores of cases against him ranging from defamation to anti-poaching. There are others registered by the CBI and by politician Jaya Jaitley. Tejpal says he has lost count of the cases he?s fighting.

?The book has been a relief from difficult times ? the centre and solidity of my life,? he says.

Of course, there are the critics who say that Tejpal always has a knack of capturing the headlines ? making news rather than reporting it. He, however, insists that this is hardly the case. ?What can I say to that? The sting operations ran us into the ground. We?re still in huge debts. From 120 people, we?ve scaled down to a few. What can you say about that??

Certainly, Tejpal has a knack of rising above the ordinary. He started as a newspaper reporter covering Punjab and has worked for a succession of newspapers and magazines including The Telegraph, India Today, The Indian Express, Financial Express and, of course, Tehelka.

In between he has pulled at least one stunning literary coup. He was a co-founder of Indiaink along with friend and photographer Sanjeev Saith. It famously published Arundhati Roy?s Booker Prize-winning novel, The God of Small Things and seven or eight other novels. ?Because of a conflict of interests, we parted ways five years ago. I sold my shares to my partner and thereafter I concentrated only on Tehelka,? says Tejpal.

Has Tehelka broken new ground in the industry apart from its novel funding scheme? It put together a few crores almost entirely from small investors but most media analysts feel that the newspaper has failed to carve out a niche in the market. Tejpal differs sharply and says it has done better than many other publications when they started. ?Creating the paper itself was a miracle. We have a staff of just 80 people including journalists, marketing and circulation people.?

His book must be a diversion from the cares and difficulties of the newspaper industry. The narrator is a writer ? or rather he makes valiant attempts at becoming one. His first manuscript ends up at the bottom of a lake and the second is abandoned even as it begins. His only refuge is his desire for his wife, as he philosophises, ?The key to the universe lies in the body of the lover. I had the key and I unlocked the universe every day.?

The atmosphere of sexuality pervading the novel might startle some people, but its author maintains it is the first of its kind among Indian writing in English. ?There is a kind of sensual atmosphere in it, but not even one explicit description of sex. Anyway, it is announced on the cover itself,? he says.

Tejpal professes to be a ?literary animal by instinct?, shaped by the reading of his undergraduate years ? Kafka, George Orwell, Gabriela Garcia Marquez, V. S. Naipaul. The last, he says, is the only Indian writer whom he holds in any esteem.

The translated versions of the book in Spanish, Italian, French and German are slated for release soon and both praise and criticism is pouring in. But the author, who?s had a 23-year career in journalism, professes to be unaffected. He smiles, ?It?s too early to judge the book. Books do not settle in weeks or months. It takes years. Time is the true test. When Moby Dick was published, every reviewer trashed it. So is the case with so many other classics. So let time decide.?

Photograph by Rupinder Sharma