A colleague, used to covering the adrenaline-driven world of sports, sits twiddling his thumbs at my table. He forages around, looking for a book to grab his attention until his eyes fall on “Play With Me”, Ananth’s testosterone-driven debut novel, that, I learn later, has set cash registers jingling with its brisk sales.
With a tempting, touch-me, feel-me cover, the book is an easy pick. “Isn't sex easy to sell,” I ask myself, not inclined to pick up a book that I judged by its cover. My friend is not guilty of hasty conclusions. He takes the book with him.
“Read page 11,” my colleague advises me the following evening, handing me the book. I do. It reads: “She walked up to me and, with her arms around my neck….kissed hungrily. She stepped back, grasped the edges of my shirt and pulled them apart, ripping off the buttons, and made me take it off. Her eyes shining with delight, she slowly licked her way down to my waist…”
“Do read page 34 or is it 35,” my friend adds, pointing to the passage, “Grinning, I leaned forward and we kissed again. It was a wet one and her mouth was warm. She pulled back and said, ‘Come inside,’ and took me by the hand…”
Could my friend have finished the book overnight, I wonder, and decide to do what I should have done in the first place: start reading the book from page one.
Pleasures beyond sensuality lay in store. “Play With Me” is naughty, evocative, even sinfully tempting, certainly not salacious, I discover, and soon book myself a lunch at Le Meridien’s Monsoon restaurant with the author whose wit never leaves him. Ananth is candid yet serious as he talks of the book over a feast of rice.
“It is not a book of ideas,” he says, in a masterly understatement as we finish our cappuccino in one go, the drink leaving a sweet, tangy aftertaste. Quietly, the book has made it to Crossword Top Twenty and is moving upwards every day. “The desire to write a book was there. I had done a couple of short stories earlier. I went about doing the book in a systematic way, focussed way. I wrote some 60,000 words, 30 chapters. The author in me was never subservient to the VP-Sales while writing the book. I concentrated on having a short blurb, chose my own design. To that extent it helped to be on the other side. Otherwise, we are pushing the book like any other, no preferential treatment,” says Ananth who happens to be V-P, Sales, with Penguin, publishers of his debut novel.
The book reminds me of Richard Crasta’s “Revised Kama Sutra” which too was published by Penguin. Crasta’s work, high on libidinal energy, had an engaging narrative, just like “Play With Me”, which too rides on physical energy but backs it up with a well layered storyline.
Ananth, happy to soak in the compliment, then reveals that the book was conceived following the stupendous success of “Fifty Shades of Grey” by E.L. James.
I draw his attention to his plate of goat cheese stuffed rice and peas kabab with pineapple carpaccio. He seems a slow eater, though, I learn, he is an eager cook at home, whipping up Malabari biryani in a jiffy and even dosai and the rest. He takes frugal bites, allowing himself ample space to talk of his novel.
“Pleasure is at the core of the plot in my book but all along I was clear that I won’t compromise on the plot’s integrity to bring in some more sensuality,” he says, finally helping himself to some king prawns infused with kaffir lime, basil, saffron and honey yoghurt.
So, he is following in the footsteps of James, I prod him on. Ananth seems a shade embarrassed, then gathers himself, “Fifty Shades didn’t work but it did for the genre what nothing else did.”
It did for the genre what maybe Chetan Bhagat did for affordable books. Ananth agrees, adding, “No matter what anybody says but his books work. To me as a publisher that is the bottomline.”
The bottomline is well taken care of with reports of “Play With Me” registering an estimated 10,000 copies’ sales in the first couple of weeks of the release.
Almost on cue to celebrate the success, the chef brings to our table basmati and khumb kofta, salan gravy and aromatic rice with king morsels to go with black lentil.
Ananth keeps his fork aside, and for once, is happy to eat. I reckon it is time to soak in the joy of the first book’s heady success.
I am wrong yet again, just as I was in pre-judging the book. Ananth is quiet and cheerful, partly because of the delicious food, mainly because he is thinking of the sequel to his book.
“Think of Me” could well be his next title, and then maybe, Ananth won’t have to field questions on Crasta, for whom “Revised Kama Sutra” proved the sole claim to fame.
Thinking. That is for the future. Today, at Le Meridien, it is play time! Over food, with spouse.
