An evening with Amitav Ghosh

Hi...

Yesterday, June 24,2008, was a wonderful day...I met or rather saw my literary idol Amitav Ghosh...heard him speak and read out from his latest novel Sea of Poppies... this was the second straight time that I was attending a 'reading' by Amitav-da... the first time I heard and saw him was when he had come to Hyderabad for the launch of The Hungry Tide...I must thank Shruti profusely for running around and trying and succeeding to arrange an invite for the event...She was really furious at me for making her run around, when Vinod told us that invitations are not required as the organisers had announced the event and venue in the papers...and that he just walked in...

I don't have to tell that I was very happy...and even mustered enough courage to stand up and make an observation about the bhojpuri songs that Amitav-da had included in his novel...and also about my experience of reading the novel with the missing pages...I also videographed a small portion where Amitav-da is reading from Sea of Poppies...I will treasure this video...

I must thank Shruti, without whose efforts and support, I would not have made it to the reading yesterday evening...she also patiently took photographs when I went up to Amitav-da to get my copy of the novel autographed...

Thanks to ITC Hotels Kakatiya for arranging this beautiful book-reading evening in the sparkling Hyder Mahal hall and thanks to Penguin for bringing out a good looking book and for their excellent production values...