What makes FT ex-journalist James Crabtree a brilliant outsider on inside

Crabtree has been on a mammoth promotional tour for his new book, The Billionaire's Raj: A Journey through India's Gilded Age - a seemingly endless phase of globetrotting

James Crabtree strolls into the cacophonous lobby of New Delhi’s Park hotel with the swagger of a high-school basketball player. His frame fits the bill. As he waves at me, I can’t help but notice how he so easily dwarfs everyone else in the large room. “I didn’t imagine you’d be so tall,” I confess. He beams and responds with a shake of the hand and a side-hug of sorts — another of those gestures you would expect from your marquee shooting guard and not a brilliantly capable journalist, writer and intellectual.

Then, as he poses for pictures outside before