Clandestine in Paris: New life and better times of Sobhraj

It is, and the first thing I tell the celebrity 52-year-old criminal who was deported to Paris on April 8, is how much his new-look became him. Sobhraj is obviously pleased and lets me in on the first of the little secrets he subsequently shares. He says he was sure of his release from Tihar Jail two years before it eventually happened and had begun preparing for this disguise. He donned the trademark beret and faded jeans in New Delhi and three days after he landed at the Charles de Gaulle airport, swapped them for a new hair-do and wardrobe.

The three days were enough to make him a millionaire. Sobhraj boasts that the payment he demanded from Sipa, a Paris-based agency for exclusive photography rights, was so high that they had to arrange for pool coverage with another photo-agency, Angeli. Four photographers trailed him day and night and Sobhraj was in the midst of a publicity blitzkrieg. All interviews were pre-fixed and conducted at undisclosed locations. At the end of three days, he claims he pocketed half-a-million dollars.

While talking figures, Sobhraj makes it a point to clarify he is now dealing in greenbacks and not rupees. “Yes, yes, I mean million dollars!” he says breezily.“Things are going fine for me. Everything is cool.”

I ask him about his current “fee”. He replies nonchalantly: $10,000 for an hour-long interview and $6,000 for a half-hour session. Then, there are lucrative book and movie contracts he is going to sign. He is hoping to sign a contract for his autobiography within a few days and is expecting to rake in $ 1.5 million just for its French rights. And the film contract? “A few million dollars more,” Sobhraj slips in, “ As I said, things are just cool for me in France.” Three publishers are apparently vying for his autobiography and Sobhraj says he is adding 10 chapters to the 15 he had already written in Tihar Jail. His new environment certainly looks more conducive: instead of hammering on a battered typewriter in a dark prison cell, he now owns a laptop computer and works either in a fashionable apartment in Paris or a villa near Versailles. His identity has not been disclosed to people in the neighbourhood, and from the few who have visited him in his Parisian hideout, including me, he has extracted a promise of not disclosing his whereabouts or address.

Sobhraj says he will remain incognito till the French Government hands him documents like his passport, driving licence et al. Then, he will realise his post-release plans: buying a Mercedes, maybe, an apartment on the bank of the Seine and flying off, first, to America to tie up another contract with publishers. He will visit India next and one of the first things he proposes to do is to set up a foundation for higher education of children with a corpus of about two million dollars.

So, will the serpent turn a tame philanthropist? For the moment, fears of recidivism appear unfounded since Sobhraj clearly wants to capitalise on his celebrity status and spend his time, writing, maybe, a book a year. The only trouble that has brewed so far is in the form of Antre Berthol, a Member of Parliament, who has been criticising him in the Press and now wants to introduce a Bill in Parliament to restrain former criminals settled in France from encashing their lawbreaking past.

After a lifetime of sensational crimes, jailbreaks and court cases, such controversies seem to bounce off Charles Sobhraj. Six weeks after his arrival in Paris, he remains heady with the excitement of his release, too preoccupied with appointments with publishers and movie moghals to bother about the harangue of a single MP. And, as he puts it, “Even if they introduce a Bill in Parliament in France, it will effect others, not me. I will have made my millions by then!”