Ajay Chowdhury on The Road to The Waiter

A disgraced Kolkata copper working as a waiter in Brick Lane gets drawn into a web of murder and deceit. This idea had been percolating inside me for a couple of decades. One day, I heard that Harvill Secker and Bloody Scotland were running a competition for debut crime writers which meant that I might have a shot at being published. That was the motivation I needed to make me sit down and actually start typing the opening.

Like many of my generation, I’d grown up in India with Hercule Poirot, Nero Wolfe, Perry Mason and Sherlock Holmes, however the only Indian detective I’d come across was Inspector Ganesh Ghote – H R F Keating’s marvellous creation. I liked Ghote, but he was as much of a caricature as Poirot (and famously Harry Keating didn’t even visit India until after he had written eight books about Ghote and Bombay!) So I’d always hankered after a ‘real’ Indian detective at work – someone I could see a bit of myself in, if you like.

My original idea was to have my copper come from Sylhet in Bangladesh because a lot of cooks and waiters in Indian restaurants in the UK are actually Bangladeshi and most of them hail from Sylhet. However, as I started writing, I realised I was falling into the same trap that Keating had – I’ve never been to Bangladesh. So, I switched tack and made him a Bengali from Kolkata, which I could write about with some sense of authenticity, having grown up there. 

I also needed him to have a foil and sidekick – the Watson to his Holmes (although Anjoli, his foil in the book, would NOT be happy being described as such). I was keen to have it be an ethnically Indian woman, again to explore life in Britain from a different angle. As I wrote, their chemistry grew, and she became almost as important a character in the book as Kamil, my protagonist.

So, what’s the book about? Kamil Rahman is a high flyer in the Kolkata CID when he is given his first big case to run – the murder of a major Bollywood star. As he investigates, he discovers a murky world of sleaze, corruption and politicking, and as he digs deeper, he falls foul of some powerful people and gets thrown out of the force. He moves to London to lick his wounds and the only job he can get is as a waiter in a restaurant in Brick Lane, working with the owner’s daughter Anjoli. Working a birthday party for an industrialist in Hampstead, he finds the millionaire dead in his pool and starts to investigate the death, helped by Anjoli. Slowly the strands come together and the climax leaves Kamil questioning a lot of what he believed.

The book changed a great deal as I wrote it. My original conception of it had been a light read – somewhat akin to Alexander McCall Smith’s Precious Ramotswe books. But Kamil refused to be a warm, gregarious, empathetic detective like Mma Ramotswe, instead turning out to be far more tetchy, ambitious and insecure. The book also became far darker and funnier than I had originally intended – in fact the only things that remained from my original idea was the concept of the disgraced detective as a fish out of water in London and the food that permeates the book.

And that was the other thing I wanted to do. I love cooking and eating Indian food, and really wanted to bring to life a lot of the cuisine and more unusual Indian fare that I adore. I enjoyed writing about the food that Kamil was serving and the dishes he longed for as he sat in his tiny room in cold, rainy London – missing the warmth and sun of Kolkata.

I have been incredibly lucky. Not only did I win the Harvill Secker competition and the publishing deal, they have, incredibly, bought the next two books in the series as well – The Chef and The Detective. The final cherry on the cake was BBC Studios optioning the book, so who knows, we may see Kamil and Anjoli on screen some day, serving Kashmiri Rogan Josh and Chicken Berry Pulao in Tandoori Knights.

The Waiter by Ajay Chowdhury (Vintage Publishing) Out Now 

Kamil Rahman, disgraced detective, turned waiter, is about to find himself embroiled in a case that might just change his life ... for better or for worse. Ex-detective Kamil Rahman moves from Kolkata to London to start afresh as a waiter in an Indian restaurant. But the day he caters an extravagant party for his boss's rich and powerful friend, the peace of his simple new life is shattered. The event is a success, the food is delicious, but later that evening the host, Rakesh, is found dead in his swimming pool. Suspicion falls on Rakesh's young and glamorous new wife, Neha, and Kamil is called to investigate for the family, with the help of his boss's daughter Anjoli. Kamil and Anjoli prove a winning team - but as the investigation progresses, and their relationship grows, Kamil struggles to keep memories of the case that destroyed his career in Kolkata at bay. Little does he know that his past will soon catch up with him in some very unexpected ways.

Photo credit -  Angelina Melwani