The Jeffrey Archer story that Jeffrey Archer doesn’t know about

I am, I’m slightly embarrassed to say, a fan of Jeffrey Archer. He is, after all, one of the world’s biggest selling authors today, having sold nearly 500 million books. Which is a tribute to his story-telling skills, his painstaking craftsmanship and his marketing skills. Like every successful marketing person, he has a certain empathy for his customers, and makes a special effort to reach out to them.

For example, knowing that he has a large number of readers in India, Archer has always made an effort to write stories with some kind of India connection. The latest example, of course, being his new novel, Cometh the Hour, with its love story between Sebastian Clifton and Priya Ghuman, much of it set in Mumbai.

Pataudi bats again

But it goes all the way back to A Quiver Full of Arrows, his first collection of short stories, published in 1980, which featured that wonderful short story The Century, about an Oxford cricketer – a thinly disguised version of the Nawab of Pataudi, as any cricket fan would immediately know – whose father, a legendary cricketer in his time, had scored a century against Cambridge at Lord’s. And now, a generation later, the son is trying to live up to his father’s legacy.

The first year, the hero of the story has a brilliant season with the bat, and is looking forward to scoring his own century against Cambridge. But on the eve of the match he injures his hand, and thus can’t play. He now looks forward to the next year’s match – but for some reason he’s out of form that season and, once again, doesn’t play the big match.

The third year, sure enough, our hero plays the Oxford-Cambridge match – but, to everybody’s disappointment, he’s out for a duck in the first innings. He now has one last chance. So in the second innings he goes out and – after a suspensefully shaky start –proceeds to play a brilliant innings, hitting the Cambridge bowlers all over the place. Then, when he’s on 99, he goes for a single, but gets stranded in the middle of the pitch … with the Cambridge captain scooping up the ball and lining up to shy it in at the stumps.

What follows is a wonderful denouement, which demonstrates what a master story-teller Jeffrey Archer is (and for which you will simply have to read the story for yourself – if you haven’t already).

There have been other stories of Jeffrey Archer’s with an Indian setting. Like The Commissioner, about a Mumbai con man and a top cop (from the Cat o’ Nine Tales collection). Or like Caste-Off, the love story of Nisha and Jamwal (from the And Thereby Hangs a Tale collection).

Do Not Pass Go

But there’s one Jeffrey Archer story with an Indian origin that – very strangely! – even Jeffrey Archer doesn’t know about. (In fact, I asked him about it once, and that’s what he told me.)

Titled Do Not Pass Go, it's the story of Mr Hamid, a political exile from Saddam Husain’s Iraq, who is on the dictator’s death list. He’s on an international flight when his aircraft suddenly develops engine trouble and is forced to land at Baghdad.

The Iraqi dissident, fearful for his life, tells the captain of the aircraft that if he is discovered by the Iraqi authorities he will be arrested, and executed. So the captain and crew work out an ingenious plan to prevent the Baghdad airport staff from finding out about Mr Hamid until their aircraft has safely taken off again. And after some harrowing incidents, the dissident finally manages to escape the long arm of Iraqi security (for details you will have to read the story for yourself).

When I read this story, I immediately recognised it – because it was almost exactly what had once actually happened to a prominent Mumbai doctor. The only difference was that Archer’s short story was not as bizarre as the doctor’s real-life story.

Flashback to the 1960s

A Mumbai doctor was flying to the US for a conference. His travel agent worked out the arrangements, which happened to include a stop at Lisbon.

Relations between Portugal and India were hostile in those days, in the wake of India’s annexation of Goa. So the doctor, very prudently, asked the travel agent if it was OK for him to take a flight that touched down at Lisbon.

Oh, no problem, the travel agent assured him. It’s just a short refuelling stop; you won’t be getting off the aircraft.

And so the doctor took off on his journey.

When his aircraft landed at Lisbon, however, the pilot suddenly announced that there was a technical snag and the passengers would have to disembark and wait in the airport lounge till the issue had been fixed.

Oops!

The passengers got off the aircraft, and were taken into the airport building. And, as they entered, as a formality, they were asked for their passports. When the Portuguese authorities saw the doctor’s Indian passport they asked him to please step aside. The next thing he knew was that the police arrived and took him away.

The doctor found himself locked up in a medieval Lisbon prison. He tried complaining but nobody listened. He couldn’t ask to talk to his embassy, because there were no diplomatic relationships between the two countries and, therefore, no embassy. It was a situation straight out of Kafka.

Days passed, and then weeks. The doctor realised that the Portuguese authorities, having put him in prison had – metaphorically or literally – thrown away the key. The country was a dictatorship in those days, and such things happened. Tough luck.

“But why did he go to Lisbon?”

Meanwhile, the doctor’s family back in Mumbai was frantic with worry. But there was nothing they could do. Appeals to various contacts in the Government drew a blank. “Relations between the two countries are bad,” the officials shrugged. “And anyway, why did he have to go to Lisbon?”

Months passed and the poor doctor was still languishing in a Lisbon dungeon, not knowing what his fate was going to be.

Finally, some influential friends in Mumbai got into the act. There was a flurry of what would today be called “back-channel diplomacy”, and an informal deal was worked out with the Portuguese authorities.

The Portuguese told the Indian intermediary that there was a valuable old portrait of a Portuguese viceroy in Goa that they wanted very much to get back. And in return, they’d be willing to consider releasing the doctor.

So that’s what ultimately happened. The portrait was sent back to Lisbon; the doctor was sent back to Mumbai.

Marked with an asterisk

And that is the true story behind Jeffrey Archer’s Do Not Pass Go. In the contents of Twelve Red Herrings, the story is marked with an asterisk, to indicate – as the author often does – that it was based on a real-life story told to him by somebody, rather than just a product of his own imagination.I happened to meet Archer a few years ago, and asked him if Do Not Pass Go was, indeed, based on the story of the Mumbai doctor. He shook his head and said that he didn’t know. He’d heard the story from somebody more than twenty years ago, he shrugged, so he really couldn’t remember now. Jeffrey Archer might not know. But I believe I know. And so, of course does the poor doctor from Mumbai, whose life was once exchanged for an old painting of a forgotten Portuguese viceroy.