BOOK READING OF 'ALMOST SINGLE' BY ADVAITA KALA

‘ALMOST SINGLE’ by ADVAITA KALA.

When I read about the book reading of ‘Almost Single’ by Advaita Kala in engagements column of Friday's Deccan Chronicle I had no idea of who the author was. Male or Female? The name didn’t reveal the gender. As I had written earlier about some readings that take place in posh hotels this book reading turned out to be in Kakatiya Sheraton. It was a big name publisher- Harper Collins but the timing was a little odd as it was listed at half past seven.

Even though it was featured in the engagements pages of several dailies as early as Friday itself the hall (Hyder Mahal) was half empty. It also seemed as if the regular book-reading crowd was missing. The most conspicuous absence was that of ‘The Little Theatre’ group.

The biggest surprise - the author turned out to be a bubbly, confident young lady from the hospitality industry. The Speaker of the Assembly was present in the gathering as also the Director General of Police who came with their families and a posse of gun-toting guards in safaris. This was quite a surprise to me since I had attended another book review in the previous month where the Commissioner of Police was the chief guest. (A lot of cops are serious book readers. I personally know a few who are voracious readers.)

‘Almost Single’ is described by the publishers, Harper Collins, as India first chick lit title. It is the story of 29 year old, Aisha Bhatia who works in a star hotel and tells about her friends, her boss and so on with a lot of references to wines, good food and varied experiences.

The let down was the speech by the CEO of Harper Collins, Mr. P. Sukumar who simply read out from the blurb. I was expecting some insights from him on the publishing scene in the country and also literary trends but I was disappointed. A lady, Madhu Swaminathan (?) read out extracts from the book and it would have been a lot better if she were a little less dramatic.

The only sensible question the author was asked about how long it took to write the book. It took eight months for her to write the book and two years for the book to be published we were informed.

The book is priced at Rs. 195 and I got it on a ten percent discount for Rs 180 from Odyssey who had put a small sale there. I later stood in a short line and got the 285-pages book autographed by the author.



There was a write up of this reading session in Tuesday's Metro Plus ( of The Hindu) and it was rather unkind, to say the least, on a first time writer whatever be the content.