Date:08/04/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/04/08/stories/2006040823600300.htm

New Delhi

Aamir gets to play a fan for once

Staff Reporter

Kiran Nagarkar's latest book "God's Little Soldier" released

STAR POWER: Film actor Aamir Khan releasing Kiran Nagarkar's book `God's Little Soldier' while singer Shubha Mudgal watches, in New Delhi on Friday. -- Photo: V. Sudershan

NEW DELHI: There was more than a little blurring of the boundaries of roles, reel and real at the release of Kiran Nagarkar's latest book, "God's Little Soldier" at a function here on Friday. A "starry" affair, where Bollywood star Aamir Khan played fan for once, the author got a chance to talk about what compels him to write.

Grappling with the question of religious fundamentalism and terrorism that the world is dealing with today, the book places them in a fictional context through the character Zia. His third book in English, "God's Little Solider", published by Harper Collins also tries to place Bhakti saint Kabir in a new perspective.

Exploring the ideas that he brings out in the book musically was noted singer Subha Mudgal who set the tone for the evening with her rendition of Kabir's `dohas'.

"I have always been a huge fan of Kiran's work ever since I read `Ravan and Eddie'. I was very happy to accept the invitation and did so without reading the book. But Kiran of course, the person he is, insisted I read the book. I told him to send it through mail. I opened it and I have it here," said Aamir, pulling out a voluminous spiral bound manuscript.

"The book was lying on my dining table, and when I saw it I realised that there were one too many Kirans in my life," said Aamir getting a huge laugh from the audience, the other Kiran of course being the young lady he married recently.

While the event started out with a packed house with book enthusiasts, publishers, writers and hoardes of scribes, by the end of the reading and the discussion only the hard-core fans remained.

"I was shooting for a film in Poland and carried the book with me after paying for excess luggage. I was there for a month, but finished the book in seven days flat. This was when I was working 12 hours a day. I just got sucked into the book," Aamir said Aamir might have stolen the limelight a bit with his stories about the book, but in the end for real fans the evening belonged to Mr. Nagarkar, who managed to reach out to his audience the best way he could through his book. Reading extracts of the book, he kept his listeners `hooked'.

"I am a story teller. I want to tell a riveting story. In search for an answer to why terrorism does what it does, I started on a journey of Zia. It is not about Christianity, Islam or any other religion, for terrorists, it is about extremism,'' he said.

Having taken nine years to write the book, Mr. Nagarkar asserted: "The book has no message. What I am talking about is when we get uncomfortable with people, we make the others. My other mission, apart from telling a riveting story and entertaining is to eliminate the distance between us and them."