“Everybody lived. None of them forever. Nobody was particularly happy.”
In nine brief seconds, creator-author of Pearls Before Swine , Stephen Pastis’ dry voice concludes the epilogue to author Nikhil Raj’s audiobook, Das . Pastis is one of 15 readers — from comedians and actors to singers and chefs — who have brought Das to life.
The Mumbai-based media professional’s debut novel follows its protagonist, an entrepreneur Vikas Das, as he recovers from a bitter “divorce” with his business partner, while at the same time grappling with alcohol addition.
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Interestingly, instead of going for the run-of-the-mill publishing system, Nikhil decided to release it directly as an e-book, and then looped in 15 big names to voice his book. The 15 chapters of the audiobook, and the epilogue, are narrated by comedians Daniel Fernandes and Abish Mathew, chef Thomas Zacharias, actors Mantra Mugdh, Hazel Keech, and musician Nikhil D’Souza among others.
“I begun writing this story four years ago. I wrote a few pages of it and then put it away. But my friends found it last year and pushed me to complete it,” says Nikhil, adding that he still does not think of himself as an author. “I just had a story that I wanted to get out to the most number of people possible.”
After a few rounds of various publishing houses, he realised that the average sales for a first time author are quite low. “I’d be lucky to sell maybe 200-300 copies,” he says. “So I decided it is better to just pass it around in a digital form.” The e-book’s PDF soon started doing rounds on WhatsApp groups.
Collaborative effort
For sales, he put up an ‘honour system’, asking readers to ‘pay what you like for it’. “It really works! People I didn’t know began reaching out to me, saying how they could relate to certain places and characters in the book,” he says, revealing that he raised more money than he could have expected to by publishing the book.
What helped of course, was having a star-studded lineup as voiceover artists. Nikhil formerly worked with Only Much Louder, a media enterprise that handles India’s well-known indie comedians and musicians, and also organises the Bacardi NH7 weekender. And so, getting in touch with these artistes, and convincing them to be a part of his book was not all that difficult.
Each person reads one chapter of the book: “Mantra was excited to do a chapter which has some of the most ‘action’ scenes in the book, while Sanaya Rafaat, who has the most experience with voice training, having worked on Broadway, did the last chapter. Abish’s chapter, on the other hand, has a lot of humour,” he says.
The plot is also peppered with references to Mumbai’s bars and indie music scene, so the chapter set in an open mic session, is read out by RJ Rohini Ramanathan. Getting Stephen Pastis was fortunate, he adds. “A friend of a friend sent him a draft of the story, and he agreed!”
“I did not have any notes to give to the artistes recording,” says Nikhil. “I just had one request: read it in your natural voice, the way in which you read in your head. Every one ended up interpreting the character in their own way, bringing their own flavour to the story.”
Das is available on https://linktr.ee/nikhilraj, and on Spotify and YouTube.