When Ravinder Singh asks his audience to raise their hands if they’ve read his book, every hand in the crowd goes up, some with smart phones, flashing pictures of the author, who released his third book Like it Happened Yesterday in Landmark recently. The story, unlike his previous books, takes a look at his childhood and all those simple memories that made it the best part of his life.
After his tryst with romance, Ravinder has now turned back the clock to celebrate his childhood. “When I was graduating from my business school last year, a few friends asked me which were the best academic years of my life; MBA or engineering and I said neither. My school days were the best,” he says, “And I wanted to relive those memories through this book. I am not an author who writes only romance. I need a cause to write and I writeabout emotions.”
And so, Like it Happened Yesterday talks about memories that anyone can relate to; having a crush on a teacher, writing with a pen for the first time, the first day of nursery school and so on. “With this book, I want to reach a wider audience. And anyone who grew up in the 1980s and 1990s would relate to these memories; of days when there were no mobile phones, or Internet and the television only had a few channels to surf through,” says Ravinder. “My readers, who are in their 30s, have already started writing to me saying that the book takes them on a nostalgic journey.”
The author recently quit his job to become a full-time writer. “I’m working on another book and either that or the next one will be a complete work of fiction. I’ve always wanted to delve into that genre,” he adds. And on his active involvement in other aspects of publishing, he says, “My work doesn’t end with the last letter of the book. I take keen interest in the title, book cover, which bookstores it’s available in, whether it is placed visibly there and other such things.” Ravinder is now on a 16-city tour to promote his book and says that this hectic schedule is worth the effort since he gets to meet his readers. And as to why he named the book so, he says, “It’s intriguing; makes you imagine ‘Yesterday’ as a little black box. You want to open the box and find out what happened in there. Also, the name sort of justifies the story inside,” he smiles.
