Indian cricketers are unfit: Jeffrey Archer

It is difficult to grab Jeffrey Archer’s attention especially when he is watching a cricket match. This becomes even tougher when it is a world cup cricket match and his favourite team (South Africa) is playing against his home team (England). So we begin talking cricket to eventually warm up to discuss his latest offering — Only Time Will Tell, the first of the five-part Clifton Chronicle.

“If I have to put my money, then it will be on South Africa,” Archer said while his eyes fixed on the giant television screen on the wall on a hot Sunday noon at a Mumbai five-star hotel. “The final will be between South Africa and India,” he said. “But it might be South Africa and Pakistan,” he quickly added sounding extremely cautious. “South Africa ought to win the world cup this year. That doesn’t mean they will win,” he explained.

About the men in blue, he said: “You got the best team in the world, that doesn’t mean you will win. India is not as fit as South Africa. Indians rely on natural ability and god-given gift,” Archer said about the Indian cricket team while praising Sachin Tendulkar, Harbhajan Singh and Virender Sehwag of the current team and former Indian test cricket team captain Anil Kumble.

With England being bu­ndled out for 171 and Ar­cher hoping an easy victory for his favourite (in fact South Africa lost the match to England), he was quick to turn his attention on Only Time Will Tell. It is the first installment in the The Clifton Chronicles — a multi-generational family saga — the most ambitious work in the four-decades of Archer’s career as international author.

“It tells the life of Harry Clifton, born in the backstreet of Clifton. He wins a scholarship to a very posh school and his whole life changes. He doesn’t know who his father is,” Archer told Financial Chronicle, about what sparked the idea for his latest novel. “It is a simple idea, but that is what I do. I tell stories from simple ideas,” he added.

The epic tale of Harry Clifton’s life begins in 1920 and will go on till 2020. In each of the forthcoming four books the author will tell the story of the Clifton family in 20-years period. The last book in the series, expected to be released in 2015, will chronicle Harry Clifton’s last 20 years from 2000 to 2020.

“I have no clue about what the end is going to be. All that I know is I have completed the first draft of the second book in the series,” Archer said.

But the man, who has written several best sellers in fiction, no-fiction and short stories, is not happy with the first sentence of Only Time Will Tell: “I was told my father was killed in the war.” ‘I was told that my father was killed in the war.’ Or ‘I was told that my father had been killed in the war.’ Archer scribbled those two options on the notepad saying “the change is more structural”.

“Can’t make up my mind, will talk to my editor, if they are fine with it then no change otherwise, will have the first sentence changed in the next edition,” said Archer.

For the man who enjoyed his political career immensely and had a promising career ahead of him, writing was not natural. It was his investment in Aquablast, a Canadian company that became bankrupt and forced his resignation from the House of Commons as a member of parliament. At 34, he was determined to repay his creditors in full; he decided to write his first novel Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less was published in 1976. Since then, he has written some of the international best seller like Kane and Abel, The Prodigal Daughter.

“We always end up doing the thing we are second best at,” Archer quotes French novelist and author Marcel Proust to describe the discovery of his talent of story telling. Archer says the last book in this series is going to be the biggest challenge for him. For a man who still hand writes all his novels, and claims that he does not even have a computer; it will be tough to imagine, think and write the story of Harry Clifton in the modern era of internet, smart-phone and tables.

“It will really be a hard work. The last book will be quite different from the first one. Futuristic elements will be in the last book. I am already talking to experts from the mobile and computer industries to understand what technologies will be in place in the coming decade,” Archer said.