When the 'very, very special' person was asked to speak and given the microphone, he quipped, 'Definitely not about cricket', evoking a burst of laughter at the Landmark here on Wednesday evening.
"When the author, Suravi Sharma Kumar and her husband came home yesterday, asking me to release her first book, I knew I had to read it before coming for the function. And from what I browsed, I find 'Voices in the Valley' is an excellent showcase of rural Assam and turmoil of the North-East," said V.V.S. Laxman, the wristy batsman who recently announced his retirement from international cricket.
At the short and sweet, simple-with-no-frills release of her 294-page book published by Rupa Publication India, Ms. Suravi said fiction was all about entertainment and that literary fiction was also bring about savouring the beauty of words and the art of day to day life that most of the time goes missing in mundane activity. A writer brings forth all these with the progress of a story and a good work of fiction should be able to make the reader drift to another world, evoke and arouse the senses like a 3-D picture in the mind's eye, she said.
A doctor who is fascinated by the world of words, the author hails from the North-East and now works for Tata Consultancy Services. Her debut in the world of literary fiction took three years to write, a task made tough considering that she is the mother of two young boys. Her husband, Sanjay Kumar, is in the Indian Administrative Service and is currently the Transport Commissioner here.
Soon after the launch, the cricketer stumped people by walking upto the billing counter and paying Rs. 295 for the copy in his hand.
