The Hindi writer from Delhi who interviewed Khomeini and Khamenei

For many literature lovers, Nasera Sharma is the author of the Sahitya Akademi award-winning novel, ‘Parijat’. But as a freelance journalist and researcher, she has also interviewed top West Asian leaders.In the early 1980s, Iran was uncertain. The monarchy was gone; clerics had taken over. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was the country’s first Supreme leader. The debilitating war against Iraq had begun. And there was still opposition to the new regime. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who would become the country’s second Supreme leader after Khomeini’s passing in 1989 and would continue in that position till his death following an Israel-US air strike in Feb this year, had survived an assassination attempt in 1981.During this critical time, writer Nasera Sharma, then also a freelance journalist and researcher, interviewed both Iranian leaders. “Khomeini in Qom and Khamenei in Tehran,” she says.