Tantric tales: a relaxed Sunday with supernatural

It’s taken me a month to post this. Reason: I promised myself that I’ll finish Anantya’s second adventure before any posts on my blog. So here I am, with a finished book (yay!) and a story for you. Tantric Tales happened on the last Sunday of April. The whole team of The Beehive, a collective of creative people, organised it, taking over over the event, setting up the venue, plannning Anantya’s favourite drink soma-on-the-rocks, deciding and creating the graphics as well as the documentary which needed to be screened. It was really kind of the Beehive girls to go so much out of their way and do all of this! That’s the Beehive team below.

With the bees of BeeHive at the end of the event
With the bees of BeeHive at the end of the event

 

It was one of the funnest events I’ve done, a chilled out Sunday evening at a beautiful venue (if you haven’t checked out Humming Tree, I suggest you go. Now. Nikhil, the introvert-ish sweetheart that he is, always has something fun up his sleeve.) where friends and strangers sat on carpets, high chairs, low chairs with a beer bottle in one hand and a pen in the other. For the quiz was on. Ashwani, the quiz master of the evening kept them all inthralled. I even saw a group of people who left their burgers, ON A SUNDAY, to solve a quiz. This city will never cease to amaze me.

Ashwani, the awesome quiz master
Ashwani, the awesome quiz master

 

Then there was the fiery soma-on-the-rocks which Anantya would’ve gobbled in a second. I avoided it in case I fell into a giggly fit right before my discussion on stage.

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Post the quiz, I came up on stage, chatted with people, talked about researching on tantrism. Frankly, I could’ve done a better job, selling my book, talking about it, etc, but it was a Sunday and I’d just had a high after a successful book launch in Delhi and before that in Bangalore, so I became like the crowd at Humming, relaxed. The evening ended with a circle where a lot of people shared their stories and experiences of the paranormal and supernatural. Amazing, that part.

The event was covered extensively by the kind MetroPlus at The Hindu, Jagran CityPlus and  we all came on Page 3 of the Indulge of New Indian Express. Thrilling for a day, that. Leaving you with a few photographs (taken by the kind Prasad N).

Interviews: Mail Today, New Indian Express, NewsNation

Phew, Anantya seems to be getting a lot of attention. In a good, good way. Last week, three interviews came out about her.

New Indian Express called me after the book launch and did a huge interview on the book without misquoting me, except in one place (atleast the spellings were all correct). Thank you for kindness, people. Read it here.

Interview in New Indian Express in February
Interview in New Indian Express in February

 

Mail Today did an interview with me on Cult of Chaos. It was great because the interview came on the same page as Shashi Tharoor’s new book’s interview. How cool? And the photograph is taken by my brother who got super excited to see his work in papers too.

The first question the journalist asked me on Anantya was:

Are you an advocate of women empowerment? Comes out strongly in the book.  

And my answer was:

Is the aggressive, car-slamming, bullet-dodging alpha characters that Salman Khan or Rajnikanth play in their movies an advocacy of men empowerment? If yes, then I agree, that Anantya Tantrist is a female alternative to it. Continue reading “Interviews: Mail Today, New Indian Express, NewsNation”

Book excerpt: Cult of Chaos in New Indian Express

Cult of Chaos is not an easy book for anyone to like, as in anyone from traditional media. Some say no, because it’s a tantrik book, a fiction supposedly encouraging superstition (without having read it of course). Which is weird really. It’s fiction, created stuff! Some of them have said no to the book because it’s too violent, sexual (though there’s not even a single sex act in the novel. Yup, still, Anantya’s such a character that you imagine that she would be doing all kinds of perverted thingies. Which is true actually). So it was quite nice of the kind people over at New Indian Express to give the book a chance and actually use this hair-raising prologue of the book.

Check it out online.

Excerpt in New Indian Express in February
Excerpt in New Indian Express in February

 

EXCERPT (Here it is. From the Prologue) Continue reading “Book excerpt: Cult of Chaos in New Indian Express”

Reviews for GHOK, 16-23 Sep

Sometimes ponder-worthy, sometimes wine-worthy. Reviews for The Ghost Hunters of Kurseong are beginning to pour in. This is just my way to share and track for myself all the goody thoughts I am getting. If you wouldn’t like to hear other opinions and instead, read it yourself, head to read bits of the book on Google Books.

IN NEWS

“A crisp, mysterious tale, the novel unravels a web of mystery, deceit, hoaxes and supernatural events.” – Business Standard

“A breezy mystery that should appeal to its target audience.” – The New Indian Express

Ghost Hunters of Kurseong

BY READERS 

“Hey I have started reading your book and I am really enjoying it. I must say that your writing style is really nice and engaging. The whole description of Kurseong makes me feel I am vacationing in hills. If you get what I am trying to say. Ruskin Bond books does that to me” –Ruchi Budhiraja Warikoo on Facebook

“Ghost Hunters is a brilliant debut in a space that Indian writers in English have for too long ignored.” – Kanishka Lahiri on Flipkart.com

“This book brings me back to the days of children’s adventure stories of which i have read several in school.” – Ashwani Sharma on Flipkart.com

That’s it for now! If you would like to buy a copy, head to Flipkart or Amazon.