Friday, June 26, 2009
Book signing
“Do you read fiction?” I asked Manish.
“Huh?” he stammered. Only minutes before, I had asked if he could write Python code to generate the Fibonacci sequence, my standard test for recruits. He was trying to work that out and I was growing impatient.
“Um, yes…” he tried to answer, but I wasn’t listening. I said, “There’s a book reading at Crossword in about fifteen minutes. Let’s continue there.”
Amitav Ghosh was in town to promote his new book Sea of Poppies. I had been seeing his books on shelves for years, but hadn’t read any, being generally sceptical of Indian authors. Many years back, when each new book cost me months of savings and days of careful consideration, I had on occasion hazarded a technical book by an Indian author, and inevitably ended up bitter. For all their cover promises, the books were always fluff.
Amitav Ghosh is good, Zainab said. But Indian fiction in English? Admittedly, I hadn’t tried any. Couldn’t hurt to try, given I can afford to buy and not read a book these days.
And so that evening, I interrupted the interview and took the candidate to a book reading, asking him to think out the code and dictate it to me later. Ghosh read an excerpt from his book and discussed it with his host. I hadn’t been to a book reading before and didn’t know what to expect. When the discussions ceased and people queued up to get their books signed, I joined.
At my turn, I put two books down on the desk. Ghosh opened one and looked up expectantly, then said “Who’s it for?”
“Huh?”
Who’s it for? For myself? I was picking a copy for myself. Who could it be for?
“For Kiran,” I said.
Wait, that sounded wrong. Someone was missing. Someone who should have come first. “…and Zainab,” I hastily added. “For Kiran and Zainab,” he wrote.
And that was how I brought home my first author-signed copy and ended up apologising for it.
…
Chandrahas Choudhury was in town this evening for his new book Arzee the Dwarf. Zainab said to say hi. She knew him? Well yes, through the Mumbai blogger circuit. I joined the queue and, when my turn came, offered a reminder of our brief meeting in Manipal last year. “Of course,” he said. “Where’s Zainab? I’m going to write this out to her too.”
“To Kiran and Zainab,” he wrote.