Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
Thiruvananthapuram
Visakhapatnam
How to draw a crowd
WHEN THE Madras Book Club was first formed by a dozen book lovers, it used to meet in the canteens of some of the major English language publishing houses. To get an audience of even 10 was a problem those days. A move to the Connemara, made possible a few years ago by that heritage hotel's generous support, has seen an average attendance at meetings of around 50 since then. Whether that's due to the improved quality of the tea, this founding member has never quite discovered.
The other evening, however, the large Binny Room at the Connemara was packed with a crowd the Club has never ever seen. It was an SRO audience, with 200 seated and scores standing crushed together in the little space left. All to hear — or, was it see? — Shashi Tharoor, well-known columnist, leading Indian author, one of the senior-most Indians in United Nations service, and one of the major players on Secretary-General Kofi Annan's team.
Looking around at the crush, I found many of the non-regulars dressed for an evening out. What had attracted them to a world they're seldom seen in, I wondered. Certainly it wasn't books, because very few signed up to swell the Book Club's existing 300-strong membership. There were not many more buyers for the author's "Riot", the subject of the talk. It certainly also couldn't have been the rather minimal `Tea' the Club organises. And they were not there to take the speaker on, the questions being only a little better than the American experience at these meet-the-author sessions which a New York Times writer recently described saying that the most popular question generally is `Do you write longhand, use a typewriter, a computer or dictate?'' and if the answer is ``Longhand'', the inevitable question that follows is ``Pencil, ballpoint, felt or fountain pen?''
Perhaps, then, it was just the glamour of a successful author who is a big name in the Indian book world, a handsome face, a bit of stylish dressing and a St. Stephen's eloquence. Pity the Madras Book Club can't get that combination all the time. If it did, it might even regularly get such crowds, even a part of which would do its meagre coffers a world of good.
S. MUTHIAH
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
Thiruvananthapuram
Visakhapatnam
|
