My New ABC

Taj—the global icon of love, pride of India and the adjectives would continue as the slithering, giant Anaconda. For some reason, I could never fancy the Taj or the romance associated with it. But then, ‘phoren settled’ sis in law’s insistence left me with no other choice but to take her family to the Taj. This would have been maybe three to four years back. I will save the chase for some other blog of mine where I would delve deeper in the assortment of poop saga, the superman alike touts etc. etc. But as of now, for this blog, when I saw the Taj, right in front of my eyes, I just said F*** is this what makes these goras flock to this city and our country? It left me sorely disappointed. To me it was cold and sterile. NO wonder my romance with the Taj and the city of Taj ended there…
…Well almost. Till the time I re-visited the city on 25thof April, 2014. Yeah, you got it right; just a day back. But what if you would have read this post after a week, month or maybe a year? So that makes the mentioning of date and year mandatory. By this time you would have known how hard it’s to keep me on the course. Lol, can’t help it, old habits die hard. Coming back to 25th of April. It was supposed to be a day in the calendar of Agra Book Club; ABC, as they call themselves (some smart branding there!)I was supposed to be at their monthly meet, discuss my work with their members , interact with journalists and post that scoot towards Delhi or wherever I came from.
Being the social recluse that I am, a normal invite or a phone call would have met with ‘sorry, I would have loved to be a part but currently I’m neck deep into too many things. Maybe some time later, for sure.’ But then ABC came highly recommended. So when the founder member Dr. Shivani Chaturvedi called me, I gave her my formal acceptance. So what If I was not too sure. With every passing day, during my brief interactions with Dr, Shivani, I would find ABC more intriguing. After all, as per me Agra should have been the last city to have a book club. Even if it had one, it would be last place to buy and read my kind of work—mature, not the typical college romance genre. Dr. Chaturvedi impressed me more and more with her posts which told me that unlike some other fancy book clubs, this one had real people who were  genuinely passionate about reading, reading more and reading good. What also caught my eyes was the comprehensive media coverage which every monthly meeting generated.
Well, so I was going to meet this bunch of reading enthusiasts, for sure. In between, a member, Nidhi Khanna Lall, came to Gurgaon.  With my vintage roots, entrenched in the backyard of Baskerville, I invited her over. She was kind enough to accept the same. Over Tam Yam salad, stir friend veggies, some noodles and sinful dessert, Nidhi’s unabated passion towards ABC, her burning desire to make things happen there, re-enforced my thought belief.
“Doc, I have some exclusive and cute gift hampers. Should I get 4-5 of them for the media?” I casually asked one day.“Do you think you could get twenty of them?” She requested.Twenty odd journalists at a book club monthly gathering? The lady ought to be hallucinating, I consoled myself.
Driving for some three odd kilometers, relishing the joy of having an automatic that leaves you with doing nothing than dozing off at the wheels, after braving the unruly traffic, the congested lanes and the holy cows, I finally reached ITC Mughal. Nidhi was already there, well in advance. Sumita, the big boss of the place (after all her hubby was the GM with the ITC Mughal) was playing the perfect host, offering freshly squeezed orange juice (or was it some other fruit Sumita? The truth is I never had hundred percent pure juice till that day as I always adulterated with vodka or whatever the sin of my season would be.) Pleasantries were exchanged over the juice, the plan for the day shared again. And from here the story takes a turn.
“Amit, Mrs Sudha Kapoor will be arriving here any moment to take you for lunch.”For God’s sake,  I was not some head of state. Let me call up the room service and order some sandwiches, period. But the story had to unfurl in another manner.But both, Nidhi and Sumita were politely insistent. Ok my insisting hosts, lets have lunch, I said to myself.  As it turned out, it was not only Sudha, but I was escorted by three more pretty ladies; Nicky, Heena and Sonika.  Gosh, a clear case of gender bias. Sitting there and feeling like the legendary ‘Hi, I’m Bond, James Bond’ the efficient staff of ITC served us.
It was already three pm and I had a press conference in the next thirty minutes. The ladies knew precisely when and where to smile and whisper “Amit, we will see you after the press meet.” Very well, I took a shower and was planning to catch a nap. But then with a doctor being your host, you ought to follow her regime. No wonder, in next ten minutes I was there at the venue.
Something was not right there. There were too many people. They could not be from the press.  As I wondered, it took me a while to figure out two things. One, the press turn out was phenomenal and second, the eighty plus member club had only two male members. Lucky son of guns.
God, give me charm, patience and resilience, I prayed. The journos had done their homework as one of them even mentioned the rating of my titles. Towards the end of the press conference there would have been more than two- dozen of camera flashes, almost blinding me.
Kahani abhi baaki hai mere dost…
After my formal intro, I was told that members would be gifting me souvenirs. One after another, they kept on coming with different sized gift packs, boxes, and bags. The center table had no place but the trail was not ending.  Amidst all this , I did notice that though the size of the gifts differed but the packaging had something in common. Every gift wrapper and every packet had a ‘Flight of the Hilsa’ graphic on it. I knew that these guys; sorry these women not only knew their job but they knew it pretty well. Did I tell you that a pretty girl, Komila, gifted me a cake, with my picture on the face of it along with miniatures of my three titles. It was the most thoughtful gift I had ever received. (You see, I got the cake from Agra to Gurgaon. But even now I don’t have a heart to carve out a slice. It is just adorable.)
During the next ninety minutes or so, my audience flung out the warm, civil hospitable side and there I was, surrounded by sharp-minded women who had seriously read every word which I had written so casually. They amazed, baffled and impressed me with their wit, observation and the power to connect the dots, drawing the right inference.
Who was the author, I chided myself. Get up, reign them, you have done it so many times, you are a rock star—I used every single affirmation, but they were so unrelenting.
During the 3 panel discussions, on my three titles, I knew that finally the devil had met his match. Those ninety minutes were the most challenging times and I loved every bit of it. It overwhelmed me to realize how serious and deep they were into reading. Hey there, tell me something, we keep on saying ‘Love you guys’ but what are we supposed to say when the guys are not guys but women; Love you ladies? Ok, I guess it sounds fine. Love you ladies!
After end of the grueling rounds, the critiques in them were replaced with ‘lovable readers’ vying for an autograph, a picture and what not. Heady mix? Wait till you read the last line.
Asli kahani abhi bhi baaki hai mere dost … Keep reading