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Changes are coming about not just on the writing front, but also in the way some of the books get launched. Earlier, of course, there was nothing called a formal book release. It just about hit the stands. Then, came along that era when it became a huge tamasha, as this or that minister or bureaucrat would be hauled or called to be there on the dais and a fairytale reading took off. Those who could afford five-star settings indulged in that, with the choicest cuisine, cheese and wines flowing… big names and bigger designations trying to outdo each other. But of late, one sees a slight shift. Though there exist those starry releases, there is a noticeable diversion, as several authors and with that publishers are taking pains to go towards the realistic path: inviting a commoner, a non-descript, middle-class person to release a book. And it really makes sense. Not just lessening of those frightful security drills (as paranoid sit the VVIPS of this land), it also lessens the undue importance we have heaped on these characters fitted in the VVIP slots. Why not give importance to those from ‘real’ India, to those amongst us who’d have the time and inclination to read the book and also would be able to relate to it, to connect, to bond, to grasp what you are trying to relay… In fact, this year, I have attended at least four such book releases where there was little importance given to big names sitting atop those high-powered designations, and it’s the so-called ‘ordinary’ personalities who were invited to release the volumes and render a short speech or two… But, then, there is another reality too. Have you ever paused to think what happens to authors and struggling writers who are based in small locales or in those pockets where ‘real’ India lives and somehow survives. How do they go publishing and releasing their volumes? How do they reach out to us in the metros? How do they survive? It’s another of those realities of the day which needs introspection and a way out… for let not the struggling writer die, unheard and unpublished. — HQ
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