At half past six on a Friday evening, close to 50 people occupy chairs that surround a dais, waiting patiently for the object of their affection, admiration and awe to arrive.
And in a few minutes, he walks past them to occupy a chair on the high platform; while women quickly adjust their hair and make-up, the men rapidly click photos. Both the genders, however, cannot control their palpable joy on seeing author Ravinder Singh at Starmark to launch his 4th book, Your Dreams Are Mine Now . A love story set in Delhi University, it revolves around the lives of Rupali and Arjun, who are united by a common cause and fall in love while fighting for it.
It’s perhaps quite obvious to see why people are hanging on to his every word and move — he is smartly dressed in jeans, a shirt and waistcoat, and when he talks, it is with an easy smile. The effect Ravinder can have on his fans is best displayed by one young lady who, during the interactive session, tells him of the time she confessed her love for him and of her disappointment to find out that he was married. He quickly envelopes her in a warm hug and members of the audience smile as if their hearts melted. Another asks eagerly about his next book, and if it would talk about how he fell in love with his wife, Khushboo Chauhan. Amidst polite laughter and audible sighs, Ravinder says that he will reveal it only when she is comfortable with the world knowing about it. By the end of the session, the crowd swells to a near 100 and the autograph line seems to never end.
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An hour before the launch, Ravinder sits down for a chat. While he is known for tackling romance in most of his books, this one, he says, revolves around campus politics. “Other genres should appeal to me and I must enjoy the whole exercise of writing them. If, perhaps, crime interests me in the future, I will,” he says.
His inspirations for books so far are autobiographical: “My childhood experiences had a major influence on my books. But with Your Dreams ... it was the revolution behind the infamous 2012 Delhi gang rape. I was working in Hyderabad when I saw the public protests on television. The visuals moved me — I was impressed that young India came out in full support in December (in Delhi when it’s biting cold) and didn’t budge when they were shot with water cannons.”
However, the one thing that puzzles Ravinder is his huge female fan following. “I was checking Twitter a while ago and I saw that someone had tweeted saying that they wish they could find a guy like Ravin (the main character in his first book based on himself). But I’m glad that she said like Ravin and not Ravin himself,” he laughs. But he theorises that opposites attract and that’s perhaps why women find him admirable and men like him because they can relate to what his male protagonists go through in his books.
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What this ‘accidental author’ did not expect was the fact that his book was not just bringing people together but actually saving marriages. “One couple, who had read my first book (separately), wrote to tell me that it made them think about what life would be like without the other. Their impending divorce didn’t happen and I was very happy,” he says. With touching stories come the crazy ones and Ravinder says he’s seen it all: “There was a fan who tattooed my name and a girl who travelled from Gujarat to Hyderabad to tell me that she loved me. But I love seeing my fans and listening to their stories; it’s wonderful to think that someone actually paid for my book, however modestly priced it may be.”
Ravinder is clear about one thing: that his books aren’t works of literature. “I don’t say it can win awards, rather it wins hearts.”
Despite the fact that he moves on from harsh criticism, there was one comment that really shocked him. “Someone told me that I was profiting from my dead girlfriend by writing about it; they have a right to dislike my work but this I couldn’t digest.”