The Serpent146;s return

Sobhraj has been the foremost celebrity criminal of our times. Barely had he been nabbed in a small Delhi hotel in the late seventies than chronicles of his exploits became bestsellers around the globe. Books like The Serpentine and The Life and Crimes of Charles Sobhraj fed and in turn fuelled curiosity about this delinquent genius. It was a trifle pathological, this interest and sympathy for a hardened criminal, but it was certainly rivetting stuff. His lonely childhood in Saigon as the son of an Indian father and Vietnamese mother. Stories of his seduction of rich American and European tourists during the high noon of hippiedom, his Bikini Murders on Bangkok8217;s beaches. Tales of his mastery over various streams of philosophy, his ease with major languages. Later, in Delhi8217;s Tihar8217;s jail, he would continue to hit the news pages, with his romantic liaisons with inmates in neighbouring prisons and requests for typewriters to churn out presumably scintillating prose. Till, of course, he finally escaped one day in 1986, only to be caught days later in a Goa bar. The operation was worthy of his supposed genius. The murderer had not lost his touch, he was merely making sure he did a decade more in Indian jails so that a Thai warrant would be timed out and the spectre of execution averted.

Which is why this straying into captivity in Nepal mystifies. Sobhraj, till last week, was leading a luxurious, quiet life in Paris. His book and film deals were worth millions. Either the Serpent has aged, or he is missing the blinding glare of cameras. Or perhaps he has yet another sneaky trick up his sleeve. Doesn8217;t he ever plan to retire?