The Bestseller She Wrote (34 page)

‘No,’ he said. ‘No, Shreya. Not now. Please.’

Shreya looked at him, surprised. This was not the first time Aditya had pushed her back. But this was the first time he was firm. There were no signs of temptation. It was not as if he was holding himself back. He was just not interested. ‘What happened, Aditya? Is something bothering you?’

‘No, Shreya. It is just that I am not in the right frame of mind. There are too many things going on right now. Aryan, my divorce, your book—everything has to come to a closure,’ he said.

‘It will be fine, Aditya. Don’t worry. It will all sort itself out.’

80

‘
B
IG DAY FOR
Shreya Kaushik. Debut book,
The Girl from Chhattisgarh
launches today. Best of Luck @authorShreya,’ screamed a pre-programmed tweet that went out from Aditya’s twitter handle that morning. It got 120 retweets within the first five minutes. Shreya’s book had generated a fair amount of buzz. It was the no.1 book on Amazon, spurred on by the pre-order sales. The media interest was disproportionate to what it should’ve been in a debutant.

The persistent beeps of Aditya’s tweets and retweets woke Shreya up. She looked at them and whooped in joy. She had a packed day ahead. The
Hindustan Times
shoot was at noon. Aditya had said that he would come directly from work. She had taken the day off.

For the shoot, Aditya came dressed in a suit—pin-striped and sharp, in line with his image of a banker. The
Hindustan Times
photographer wanted them to hold hands. Shreya readily moved closer to Aditya who refused. The photographer then took a few solo shots.

When he was done with his shoot, and the photographer was busy with Shreya, Aditya called Poonam Saxena. It was a long call. When he was done, he walked up to Shreya. ‘She has promised a cracker next week. Let’s wait for it.’ The two of them walked out of the venue. Aditya headed back to his office and Shreya went home. She had to get ready for the launch.

81

T
HE
K
EMPS CORNER
Crossword wore a very festive look. In one corner there was a giant backdrop which carried the image of the book cover, and logos of Crossword and Kiwi, apart from a larger-than-life image of Shreya. When Shreya saw it, she quickly went up to the stage and took some selfies with the backdrop before people came in.

Over sixty seats were laid out in front of the podium.

The two-level Crossword store was a preferred destination for book lovers in south Mumbai. On the first level, the store even had a Moshe’s café. In fact it was one of the first bookstores to have an in-store café. The glass walls of the café overlooked the larger part of the ground floor. Anyone sitting there could look directly into the space where the launch event was to happen.

Anurag Kashyap arrived at 6.30 pm sharp. He was a stickler for punctuality. Shreya was at the door to receive him. The publisher from Kiwi had come down from Delhi, especially for this event—an honour rarely bestowed upon a first-timer. Aditya was already there, backstage, checking if everything was under control.

A number of people from National Bank had turned up for the event. The seats had started filling up. It looked like it would be a full house.

For the benefit of those who could not attend, two video cameras had been set up to cover the event. It was being streamed live.

In Mumbai, there are three things that interest journalists—movies, murder and sex. Interest quotient in books and authors is at the barest minimum. Yet, a number of journalists were present at the launch. Whether they were interested in Shreya’s book or Aditya’s relationship with her, remained to be seen.

Aditya walked up to Anurag who was talking to Shreya in a corner of the ground floor, right next to the bestseller rack and shook hands.

‘Shall we?’ he asked pointing towards the stairs and led both Shreya and Anurag to Moshe’s café on the upper floor.

‘I can’t see a copy of your new book, Aditya,’ Anurag commented as they walked up the stairs.

‘Might have sold out, Anurag. I will have it checked,’ Aditya responded as he walked into the café. ‘We are waiting for a few more people to arrive before we start. I hope it is okay with you?’ Aditya asked Anurag.

Anurag looked through the glass walls of the café, down to the Crossword shop floor. ‘More people?’ he exclaimed, ‘How many more?’ In a surprised tone, he added, ‘Can the store even take in more people?’ There were already 150 people in the store.

‘We just need room for six. They will all be here in two minutes, sir.’

Within the promised two minutes Sanjay and Diana walked in. They were followed by Tim Xavier and then by Sunaina. When Shreya saw the person next to Sunaina, she freaked.

‘Melwin!’ she exclaimed. ‘What are you doing here?’ Suddenly she looked a bit anxious. ‘Sunaina, you are still in touch with Melwin?’ she asked. ‘You never told me.’

‘Hold on,’ Aditya stepped in. He nodded to the security person standing at the entrance. The guard pushed the sliding door and watched it softly glide into its position effectively cutting off the people in the room from the rest.

‘Shall we begin?’ asked Aditya the moment the door shut.

‘Shouldn’t we be heading down? Aren’t we getting late?’ Shreya said. She was getting nervous.

‘Not at all. We have thirty more minutes. Normally all book events start thirty minutes behind the scheduled time. You know it . . . You have been to so many of these events.’

‘Of course,’ she smiled nervously. Her eyes wandered down to where people were gathering. There were over two hundred people in the crowd now . . . and growing.

But something else was making her anxious.

Finally the sliding door to the café opened and in walked someone who Aditya had specially invited for the evening.

‘Good evening, sir. It’s great to see you. I’m so happy you could make it,’ said Aditya as he extended his hand towards his guest.

82

Thirty minutes later: 7.00 pm

The emcee for the evening took over. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, Crossword Bookstores welcomes you to the launch of
The Girl from Chhattisgarh
, the first book by Shreya Kaushik. For those of you who don’t know Shreya, she is a management graduate from IIM Bengaluru, and a banker by profession . . .’

The emcee went on to introduce Shreya and finally invited her on stage. After that she introduced Aditya and Anurag and called them up on stage too. The two of them walked up to a thunderous applause. On stage, they unveiled the book—
The Girl from Chhattisgarh
—and held it up for everyone to see. The audience clapped till their hands hurt.

‘May I now request our guest of honour Mr Anurag Kashyap to say a few words about the book,’ the emcee said.

‘Friends,’ Anurag began, ‘I have read many books. But I am not a reader who experiments. I am not one who would pick up a book by a debut author, on my own. But after being forced to read Shreya Kaushik’s book, I can say with surety that I have been wrong all along. I should have had the courage to pick up debut authors. The freshness in their voice, the desire to produce a quality product, shows. After reading Ms Kaushik’s work, I have become her fan. And such a big fan that I have decided to make a film on her book,’ he paused for the applause to begin and grinned wide till it died down. He looked at Aditya, ‘May she become a bigger author than you.’ He smiled and said to the audience, ‘All of you must read the book. It’s highly recommended.’ He turned to his left, looked at Shreya and extended his right hand, which she gladly accepted. ‘Congratulations,’ he said before returning to his chair.

‘Thank you, Anurag sir. That, I am sure, will be one cracker of a movie,’ the emcee said into the microphone. ‘We will all watch the movie; first day, first show. And with that I would like to call the woman of the moment—debutant author and banker with a difference—Shreya Kaushik! Ladies and gentlemen, presenting to you, for the first time ever—Shreya Kaushik.’

It was as if the entire bookstore had erupted. The noise was deafening. Shreya walked to the front of the stage and started speaking. ‘Can you hear me?’ she said. ‘At the back?’ When she didn’t get adequate response, Aditya stepped up. ‘Hold it closer to your mouth,’ he said, pushing up the handheld mic towards her lips. Shreya smiled at Aditya gratefully and began:

‘Friends, thank you all for coming here on a working day to be a part of an event which is extremely special to me. You have no idea what this means to me. This book, my first novel is more important to me than everything else. Possibly more important than life itself,’ said Shreya. While she was comfortable on stage, something seemed to be holding her back.

‘This book,
The Girl from Chhattisgarh
, is inspired by a true story, the true story of a woman who was brutally raped when she was fifteen. How she gathered what was left of her life and came roaring back, is what the book is all about. It’s a poignant story of a woman’s struggle for her dignity, for her life and for justice,’ she paused. Aditya had asked her to write down what she wanted to speak about and had made her memorise it entirely. He had also helped her improve her diction and told her where to pause for maximum effect.

‘I am extremely thankful to Aditya who has stood by me through good times and bad. He has helped me at a time when he was going through trying times at a personal level. I owe the book to him. Without him, I would not have achieved anything. Thank you, Aditya. You are special.’

Tremendous applause sounded out. An irritated Maya was watching this on YouTube with morbid curiosity.

Shreya then thanked Anurag and the crowd for their support and quickly finished her concise speech with an emotional appeal to the crowd to spread the word about her book. ‘When it comes to books, nothing works like word of mouth,’ she gave her parting shot and walked back to her seat. Aditya could see that there were tears in her eyes.

‘Moving on,’ the emcee announced. I would now like to invite Mr Aditya Kapoor to say a few words.’

The ovation that Aditya got was the loudest. The flashbulbs lit up the stage, cameras started clicking furiously and the audience clapped enthusiastically.

‘Friends,’ he began.

Maya moved closer to her laptop screen. She pressed a few buttons, only to realise that the volume was at its maximum. Cursing herself that she had left her earphones in her car, she got up and turned off the fan and the AC to reduce the noise in the room. She could hear Aditya better now. Just as she was about to settle down, her phone rang. It was Dr Krishnan. Why was he calling her now? She didn’t have any tests scheduled. She ignored it. She would call him back after the event.

‘People often ask me why my books sell and the only answer I give them is that they sell because I have lovely readers like you.’ The applause that followed thereafter was not new for Aditya. He was used to it, the showman that he was. ‘I want you to give the same love and affection to Ms Kaushik. I have read her manuscript and I can assure you that this is the first time I have been so moved by the writing of a debutant. Mark my words, she is the future of Indian writing. And I wish her all the best. This is her first book so please give her a chance,’ said Aditya.

Maya who was watching the live streaming of this event at home, squirmed. She didn’t like the look of what she was seeing. Aditya was publicly praising Shreya, and it hurt her. She wondered if she should watch any further but decided to persist.

‘I say this because after forty years and multiple books, I make mistakes even now,’ Aditya paused, ‘and one of those mistakes has cost me fifteen years of my life.’ He turned towards Shreya and then looked at the audience. Sanjay was sitting in the front row expressionless.

At home, Maya’s phone rang again. She looked at it, Dr Krishnan was calling. Maya was not in a mood to talk to anyone. She turned the phone to silent mode and went back to watching the live streaming. There were three messages from Dr Krishnan. She swiped the screen and read them, all in a matter of seconds. Dr Krishnan had asked her to call him back urgently. She ignored his pleas. Nothing was more important than hearing what Aditya had to say right now, even if what Dr Krishnan had to say had to do with Ebola.

‘There comes a point in time when the direction life takes is decided by the choices you make. And I made some wrong choices. As an author, one is expected to be humble, to have his feet firmly on the ground. Being an author carries a certain element of glamour, particularly for people who don’t belong to this profession. That glamour, if it comes your way, can blind you. A successful author and a balanced human being, needs to sift through life’s experiences and figure out the difference between glamour, vanity and truth.

‘I was vain. When I got attention, I became weak. I couldn’t resist. Middle age made me a lot more susceptible to vanity and I succumbed. I would like to confess today that Ms Kaushik and I were in a relationship. A relationship which was not one of convenience, as
Bombay Times
put it, but was genuine. She got attracted to my stature as an author and I was attracted to her youth, ambition and obvious beauty. Perhaps in me, she saw everything that she aspired to be. And somewhere, unknowingly, both of us made choices which were wrong. As my wife Maya says, adultery is not a mistake, it is a choice. I made a choice. Do I regret making the choice?’ he paused. ‘I definitely regret the consequences of that choice on my family. That was not something either Shreya or I had bargained for. How naive I was to assume that the adulterous relationship would last for ever, on my terms,’ Aditya ruminated.