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Aditya Sinha: Of book signings and severed heads

Updated on: 16 January,2017 07:34 AM IST  | 
Aditya Sinha |

Autographing books at a weekend book fair becomes a lesson in patience and an interesting place to observe types of readers

Aditya Sinha: Of book signings and severed heads

Autographing books requires patience. It was the weekend, so the stalls were jam-packed and people of all sizes and shapes thronged ours. Representation pic
Autographing books requires patience. It was the weekend, so the stalls were jam-packed and people of all sizes and shapes thronged ours. Representation pic


On Saturday, the first carton of my crime novel ‘The CEO Who Lost His Head’ came from the printers and PanMacmillan asked me to sign copies at their stall at the ongoing World Book Fair at Pragati Maidan, a sprawling Soviet-style exhibition ground in the heart of the Capital. It had been ages since I visited the book fair: we used to visit when I lived in Delhi and my children were young, but since the early-2000s I have avoided it because the kids have flown the nest and also, it is so crowded as to induce claustrophobia.


Autographing books requires patience. It was the weekend, so the stalls were jam-packed and people of all sizes and shapes thronged ours. They streamed past the children’s table where three stacks of my books were waiting to be bought and signed. Two children ran up to me and asked, “Where’s the clay?” The marketing chief explained that the previous day they had held children’s activities at that very table. Today, there was an event around a book on hairstyling for girls; earlier last week, the same event had attracted a long queue of pre-teen queens waiting patiently for their curls and waves. Damn, I thought: for my novel I should have gotten a prop, possibly a severed head.


A pack of schoolchildren, in blue blazers with the school emblem patched onto the breast pocket, gathered around me. They were curious: What will you sign? Is that your name? You have written the book? Why do you have to sign it if your name is already printed on the book? They were sweet and so I took the time to answer as simply as I could that book-signings were merely a faux version of celebrityism in a modern world of online and televised images run amok. They were uninterested in any Baudrillard-type deconstruction, but a couple of boys were keen that I inscribe a copy for them. “How much does it cost?” At the fair there was a 25 per cent discount so that came to Rs 225, at which all their faces fell. “Uncle, mere paas toh paise nahin hai,” one crestfallen boy said. No worries, I said; there must be around 200 of you, so each of you can chip in a rupee and I’ll make up the difference, and I’ll write all 200 names. “Uncle, others are not interested.” That was that.

A man and his energetic son approached and the baffled boy read the title aloud as a question. Yes, I told them, it’s about a CEO who removed his own head but misplaced it, and he could not find it because he didn't have a head with which to search. They immediately fled.

Another two boys approached the table so I told one that if he bought this book his mothers might stop pestering him to study hard and become a CEO. They shrank away and my publisher rolled her eyes, saying that any young boy reading my admittedly racy-in-parts novel was going to get a most unexpected introduction to crime writing.

The first to buy the book was a woman (a young journalist) and her spouse (in publishing). We chit chatted; I was over-the-moon. Immediately after, a balding man with heavy-framed glasses and a natty leather jacket came up and introduced himself as Siddharth Chowdhury. I must have looked blankly, for he thanked me for the generous reviews of his books that I had written over the years. “Ohhh,” I said, thrilled to finally meet one of my favourite contemporary Indian writers. I sat and wondered until he gently coughed, so I finally came up with something trite disguised as wit.

My nephews came by and that touched me deeply. Then a string of former journalists showed up, each asking me the same question: “Is the book about XYZ?” They were referring to the Mumbai daily of which I was editor-in-chief in 2011-2012. Since the novel is also set in a newspaper office in Mumbai, everyone assumes I am settling scores. To all I say one thing: Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. My only true inspiration was Mumbai itself.

Yet, it is difficult to convince others that this is a work of fiction. Some ex-colleagues have messaged to ask: Boss, am I in the novel? I hate to disappoint them but I have to say, no, the only real-life character in the novel is Mumbai. Most write epic odes to Mumbai (or make films in the form of love-letters), and perhaps I ought to have written something akin to ‘War and Peace’ or ‘In Search of Lost Time’. That was the original intention but then you know about life: it’s all the things that happen to you while you search out your destination.

Aditya Sinha’s crime novel, The CEO Who Lost His Head, is available online now, and in bookstores later this month. He tweets @autumnshade. Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com

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