"He came, he saw, he spoke, he conquered.............."
Very few times in life you get the opportunity to meet someone whom you have adored through your growing up years. And when such an opportunity presents itself, you wouldn't miss it for anything - not even the heavy downpour that was lashing across the city on a gloomy Friday evening.
"We will go at any cost even if it continues to rain.......after all its not everyday that you get to meet Jeffrey Archer........." wrote my friend, Preeti on Yahoo messenger even I as I had already made up my mind to get the autograph of one of my favorite writers. Chidrup, the person who enlightened me about Jeffrey's visit, was ready too for the rendezvous with the master story teller. My other friend Siddharth, an ardent Jeffrey fan, had already reached the Landmark store and was waiting there.
We arrived at the venue at around 6.30 pm and each of us picked a copy of Jeffrey's latest book - "A Prisoner of Birth". The atmosphere in the bookstore was quite electrifying - people were busy picking up copies of Jeffrey Archer's latest page turner before the man himself arrived. Quite expectedly, the mood was one of anticipation and awe. The crowds were briskly pouring in and soon all the seats were taken up. Briefly my mind wandered off to that day when I picked up Jeffrey's most popular book - "Kane and Abel". I had been spell bound by the sheer canvas of the book - a story that starts across two continents, two protagonists with very contrasting backgrounds and a rags-to-riches tale with a heavy dose of boardroom politics and political intrigue. Even as I was lost in thought, the noise decibels in the room suddenly raised manifold and there was a lot of commotion...............
Jeffrey Archer entered the bookstore at around 7 pm. The first thing he did was to assure everyone of his autograph on each of the copies of his new book. After that, he started his brief speech - one that held the audience in rapt attention. He brought the house down with his immensely funny anecdotes, made us think with his words of experience, made us gasp with some startling statistics and more importantly made our evening a memorable one........
Jeffrey recalled his experiences with promoting his book -"Kane and Abel" when he was an unknown entity in the US (Jeffrey is a British writer........). The publisher of Jeffrey's book - "Kane and Abel" wanted to launch him in grand way in the US so that the book could break into the coveted New York Times bestsellers Top 15 list. For this, he was to share a 6 minute time slot on a popular TV programme with the likes of Mickey Mouse and Billy Carter ( brother of US President Jimmy Carter). He had been strictly instructed by his publisher to mention the title -"Kane and Abel" as many times as possible during his speech. As it turned out, Mickey and Carter ended up hogging close to five minutes and all that Archer had was about a minute. And of course, he completely forgot to mention the title even once during that time!!! During another popular TV show, Jeffrey trying to promote his "Kane and Abel" was mistaken by the interviewer to be Edmund Hillary - the man who first scaled Mt.Everest!!!!
He really had the audience in splits when he mentioned about an amazing statistic - each novel bought in India is read by 25 people on an average whereas in the US or UK, it is just about 3 people per book!!! So much for the health of the Indian economy, he jokingly remarked. He also mentioned about one of the best interviews he had ever given - the one with the very knowledgeable Sunil Sethi of NDTV (he hosts a programme called "Just Books"...). It seems Sethi told Archer that a measure of an author's popularity in India is not the number of books he sells but whether pirated copies of his books are available at traffic signals!!!
He also said that he spends nearly 8 hours a day writing his books and it really takes several drafts before the script can be deemed publishable. For example it took Archer 1000 working hours and 17 drafts before "The Prisoner of Birth" could be finally published. He also made an interesting point in response to a question raised by one audience member - when you start a short story you should know your last line and then fill in the intermediate plot but when you write a novel, you let your plot grow and decide the course when you come to that point.
Interestingly, Archer paid a glowing tribute to R.K.Narayan whose books he had come to admire deeply. He also reiterated his "T20 is not cricket but entertainment.." statement (Cricket according to him is Laxman and Dravid surviving on a Perth track for an entire day against hostile Australian bowling!!!). He also showered accolades on India's greatest sporting icon, Sachin Tendulkar. He suggested the names the O'Henry, Guy de Maupassant, Roald Dahl and Hector Munroe (Saki) as the finest exponents of short story writing.
His speech was followed by a question and answer session with the enthusiastic audience - the questions were diverse and interesting. They wanted to know about his inspiration, his favourite book, if he had ever had a writer's block, why all his stories had the rags-to-riches element, what his next book was all about.........phew........!!!!
After this the book signing session started and all hell broke loose. There was no semblance of order at all....people were shoving and pushing each other in a quest for their favourite writer's autograph. I have always had issues with queques (especially if it has to do with religious intent) but for a change, I didn't mind the queque and the crowd. All that mattered was the autographed copy of the book. In the end all the four of us succeeded in owning an autographed copy after nearly an hour.
Jeffrey Archer at the end of his speech said that he would mention about his India trip to his grandchildren - but I on my part will at least mention to my friends about my evening with the master story teller!!!
Even as I finish this post, "The Prisoner of Birth" is waiting on my table to be resumed..........
Till my next post.........Adieu...............
Very few times in life you get the opportunity to meet someone whom you have adored through your growing up years. And when such an opportunity presents itself, you wouldn't miss it for anything - not even the heavy downpour that was lashing across the city on a gloomy Friday evening.
"We will go at any cost even if it continues to rain.......after all its not everyday that you get to meet Jeffrey Archer........." wrote my friend, Preeti on Yahoo messenger even I as I had already made up my mind to get the autograph of one of my favorite writers. Chidrup, the person who enlightened me about Jeffrey's visit, was ready too for the rendezvous with the master story teller. My other friend Siddharth, an ardent Jeffrey fan, had already reached the Landmark store and was waiting there.
We arrived at the venue at around 6.30 pm and each of us picked a copy of Jeffrey's latest book - "A Prisoner of Birth". The atmosphere in the bookstore was quite electrifying - people were busy picking up copies of Jeffrey Archer's latest page turner before the man himself arrived. Quite expectedly, the mood was one of anticipation and awe. The crowds were briskly pouring in and soon all the seats were taken up. Briefly my mind wandered off to that day when I picked up Jeffrey's most popular book - "Kane and Abel". I had been spell bound by the sheer canvas of the book - a story that starts across two continents, two protagonists with very contrasting backgrounds and a rags-to-riches tale with a heavy dose of boardroom politics and political intrigue. Even as I was lost in thought, the noise decibels in the room suddenly raised manifold and there was a lot of commotion...............
Jeffrey Archer entered the bookstore at around 7 pm. The first thing he did was to assure everyone of his autograph on each of the copies of his new book. After that, he started his brief speech - one that held the audience in rapt attention. He brought the house down with his immensely funny anecdotes, made us think with his words of experience, made us gasp with some startling statistics and more importantly made our evening a memorable one........
Jeffrey recalled his experiences with promoting his book -"Kane and Abel" when he was an unknown entity in the US (Jeffrey is a British writer........). The publisher of Jeffrey's book - "Kane and Abel" wanted to launch him in grand way in the US so that the book could break into the coveted New York Times bestsellers Top 15 list. For this, he was to share a 6 minute time slot on a popular TV programme with the likes of Mickey Mouse and Billy Carter ( brother of US President Jimmy Carter). He had been strictly instructed by his publisher to mention the title -"Kane and Abel" as many times as possible during his speech. As it turned out, Mickey and Carter ended up hogging close to five minutes and all that Archer had was about a minute. And of course, he completely forgot to mention the title even once during that time!!! During another popular TV show, Jeffrey trying to promote his "Kane and Abel" was mistaken by the interviewer to be Edmund Hillary - the man who first scaled Mt.Everest!!!!
He really had the audience in splits when he mentioned about an amazing statistic - each novel bought in India is read by 25 people on an average whereas in the US or UK, it is just about 3 people per book!!! So much for the health of the Indian economy, he jokingly remarked. He also mentioned about one of the best interviews he had ever given - the one with the very knowledgeable Sunil Sethi of NDTV (he hosts a programme called "Just Books"...). It seems Sethi told Archer that a measure of an author's popularity in India is not the number of books he sells but whether pirated copies of his books are available at traffic signals!!!
He also said that he spends nearly 8 hours a day writing his books and it really takes several drafts before the script can be deemed publishable. For example it took Archer 1000 working hours and 17 drafts before "The Prisoner of Birth" could be finally published. He also made an interesting point in response to a question raised by one audience member - when you start a short story you should know your last line and then fill in the intermediate plot but when you write a novel, you let your plot grow and decide the course when you come to that point.
Interestingly, Archer paid a glowing tribute to R.K.Narayan whose books he had come to admire deeply. He also reiterated his "T20 is not cricket but entertainment.." statement (Cricket according to him is Laxman and Dravid surviving on a Perth track for an entire day against hostile Australian bowling!!!). He also showered accolades on India's greatest sporting icon, Sachin Tendulkar. He suggested the names the O'Henry, Guy de Maupassant, Roald Dahl and Hector Munroe (Saki) as the finest exponents of short story writing.
His speech was followed by a question and answer session with the enthusiastic audience - the questions were diverse and interesting. They wanted to know about his inspiration, his favourite book, if he had ever had a writer's block, why all his stories had the rags-to-riches element, what his next book was all about.........phew........!!!!
After this the book signing session started and all hell broke loose. There was no semblance of order at all....people were shoving and pushing each other in a quest for their favourite writer's autograph. I have always had issues with queques (especially if it has to do with religious intent) but for a change, I didn't mind the queque and the crowd. All that mattered was the autographed copy of the book. In the end all the four of us succeeded in owning an autographed copy after nearly an hour.
Jeffrey Archer at the end of his speech said that he would mention about his India trip to his grandchildren - but I on my part will at least mention to my friends about my evening with the master story teller!!!
Even as I finish this post, "The Prisoner of Birth" is waiting on my table to be resumed..........
Till my next post.........Adieu...............
