Amit Varma's Debut Novel Launch @ Landmardk, Chennai

I met Amit Varma, India’s most famous blogger on 18th May at the nungambakkam landmark. It was the chennai launch of Amit’s debut novel - My Friend Sancho. For the utterly butterly uninitiated, Amit is the author of India Uncut, nominated to India’s 50 most powerful people - 2009 by Businessweek. YUP! In the virtual world called blogosphere, he’s awesomeness personified.

News of LTTE chief Prabhakaran’s death made my employer close an hour earlier. So, my brother and I could comfortably attend the event, at 6:30pm. My brother, who recently graduated from “educational” magazines to serious books, was genuinely interested to interact with the free snacks.

As we entered the basement bookstore, a section near the entrance had been cleared to hold about 25 blue plastic chairs, a maroon carpeted dais, couple of flyers of MFS’s cover with the famous lizard (see pic above) mouthing the book’s title and 2 giant speakers capable of imparting hearing to the deaf.

We spotted Amit, dressed smartly in a blue denim shirt and matching jeans interacting with one of the smart ladies from Hachette-India. As all the seats excepting the front rows were occupied by 6.35pm, Amit, accompanied by the casually (or was it carefully?) dressed Sharanya Manivannan stepped onto the dais.A brief introduction about the publiser, the author and the interviewer was delivered by a coordinator from Hachette, during which Amit’s recent nomination to Businessweek’s power list was mentioned and on cue, Amit sucked in his paunch in a comic display of strength. It was funny. But, Sigh! The things one has to do to sell books these days!

As the introduction concluded, Amit unwrapped a copy of his book and remarked jocularly, quote “I hope it’s the right book. If not, I’ll read from whatever is packed”. The audience clapped softly as he unveiled the right book and posed for photographs with the book in his hands and a suitably somber expression on his face.

All this while, the lizard on the poster eyed Sharanya lewdly.

Amit then introduced Abir Ganguly, the protagonist of the novel and read excerpts from the first chapter of the book. As yours truly had already read the book, I was all smiles as Amit casually read out loud “I masturbate 11 times a day”. Some of the women folk in the audience suppressed a well deserved appreciative chuckle. Sorry Amit! Chennai’s like this only!

As soon as he finished, Sharanya, till then a mute accomplice to the media drama, erupted into a warm smile, and started making advances towards him. No, I’m kidding! She just asked Amit few well rehearsed questions. Reader alert: I wasn’t carrying any mp3 recorder and I was in no mood to take notes, so what follows is the crux. The threadbare details recollected from memory. Read at your own peril.

***

Sharanya: Tell us Amit, how many times do YOU masturbate?
Amit: I told you, 11.

S: I thought that was Abir.
A: He is a journo, I was a journo, put 2 and 2 together..

S: You get 11?
A: Yesssss….

S: (rolling eyes) Wow!

At this instant, an aunty in the audience threw a BATA slipper at Amit and all the lizards on the cover of his books jumped to life and ran for cover.

***

ok, OK. That was disgusting. Nothing of that sort happened.Although, early on, Amit did break the ice by requesting the audience to throw a shoe at him, thereby making the event a grand success and catapulting him to instant celebrity.

Given below is the real crux of Amit’s response - in no particular order.

Amit is a creature of the night. He usually writes through the night, eating breakfast at 7:30am like most adult bats and dozes off till 4pm. Upon waking, he gulps down 3 cups of black coffee in bid to find himself and connect to the world of mortals. After catching up with his wife in the evening, He dozes off again at 9pm, wakes up at 11pm and transforms into a novel writing Dracula with black coffee replacing blood in his veins. When asked, “why the odd hours”, he cited a quiet and serene atmosphere (while all those credit card tele-sales persons are resting I suppose) as the primary reason.

He finished MFS between March and June of 2008, when he was finally, quote “done procrastinating”. Upon incessant prodding by Sharanya on tips to budding authors, he simply dissuaded the greenhorns from chasing the glamour of writing.He warned that sashaying down the glamor ramp would lead to certain discontentment and disillusionment. As an example, he compared the top 100 bankers in India to the top 100 writers, and explained that while the 100th banker would still be stinking rich, the 100th writer pales in comparison and would be making, quote "NOTHING!". I hope that is not the case, and sincerely wish that they are at least making love.

Amit assured the audience that if one is fuelled by the passion to write and not merely chasing a lucrative career, then one should flex their, quote "writing muscle" by dedicating time to write at least 2000 words everyday. Citing his own experience, Amit, rather humbly attributed his refinement in writing to his journey as blogger since 2004.

On the challenges of getting published, Amit again humbly claimed to be at the right place at the right time and considered being long-listed for the Man Asian Literary Prize 2008 as the decisive factor. Thanks to the long-list, Amit found himself in the unenviable position of actually cherry picking Hachette from a pool of 4 publishers. Quite a feat for a debutant novelist.

After answering Sharanya's first round of questions, Amit, now completely at ease with the audience, kept the promise he made on his blog! He, I kid you not, screamed in orgasmic pleasure, recreating the feat Meg ryan had performed in “When Harry Met Sally”, as he read out loud from mid sections of the book about a particularly wicked plate of pasta! It was hilarious!

The lizard loved every minute of it!

After recovering from the shock, the orthodox Chennai audience, with a wary eye on the snacks table enquired about Amit’s inspiration to write, his favorite authors, about MFS being a clever rearrangement of FSM, etc. An elderly gentleman asked something about sanchi(??) and chuckled to himself rather cutely. A shrill voiced junior asked him if Abir was an imagined character??(you have a long way to go buddy!). All the while, Amit , with a serene Buddha like smile, patiently replied “Yes Yes, the snacks are free!”.

After closing the Q&A session, Amit signed copies of the book, and I got an opportunity to discuss some of the sections of the book. I hope Amit wasn’t offended by my weird interpretations and profound cheekiness.

This pic below is my treasured possession:


All in all, it was a well attended function. I was thrilled to finally meet the force behind IndiaUncut and Guys, the force is really strong with this one. Amit’s eloquence, calm disposition and infinite patience won him many more admirers at Landmark that day. Amit, You Rock Dude!

Now, I eagerly await my other blogging hero – Sidin Vadukut’s book and earnestly hope that he too will have a snack session...err.. book unveiling session at Chennai!

Ps: Quizzing trivia: This is the first book launched in India (the word??) with a colored bar code! Check out the cover!

Pps: There is a nice anecdote on why the protagonist of the novel is called Abir. hehe.. ask Amit! ;)

Ppps: Daily-humor author Rohan was also present at the venue, but unfortunately I didn't recognize him :( What a lost opportunity! You can read his narrative here.