On a lazy Sunday afternoon, as I was watching the clock struck 4, I was busy searching the book Warlord of Ayodhya: Rebellion by Shatrujeet Nath. Its yet another interactive session with an author and his book. My Secret Bookshelf (MSB), book club, an online book store, held its meet for the month of April 2022 and with the April’s Book of the Month on Sunday, April 24. I still remember the first time we had this meetup at Café Bellevue, with book lovers sipping coffee, talking endlessly about books and overlooking the mighty Brahmaputra, almost three years back. Nothing has changed much, except the mode of meetup, due to these COVID times.
Being one of the core members of the book club, I have seen it evolve from just a simple book club on a WhatsApp group to being an online book store and a platform for Author Promotion Program. Not only the members are book lovers, but we also have established authors as one of them. This Sunday, the meetup was mythological and mystical, with topics of fantasy, magic and Indian Mythology. Shatrujeet Nath, a renowned writer in the mythological fiction series, was the guest. We talked about his latest book Warlord of Ayodhya: Rebellion, rated 4.6/5 in Amazon and Goodreads.
The meetup started on one of the most common online video conferencing platforms, Zoom. The founder, Ms. Antara Bhattacharjee, started, by introducing the author and the moderator of the meet, followed by the rules of the meetup. The moderator, Mehak Varun, a writer, a poet and an artist herself, and conferred with ‘100 Inspiring Authors of India’ award in Kolkata, introduced the author and the book and interviewed Shatrujeet about his thoughts on his latest book. While all the members of MSB were hooked on to their respective device screens, the author continued painting the meeting with his vision of writing this book. He explained how his latest book is different from all other books that he wrote till now. He continued explaining, how mythological story telling has progressed from being heard from grandmothers to graphic novels and mythological fiction books. Adding to this, Shatrajeet, recounted his days being a journalist and gradually moving on to become an author and script writer.
With the starting of the question-and-answer round, Shatrujeet was elevated and thrilled with all kinds of views and thoughts about his book. One of the members of the book club, asked him, since he is an author of the mythological fiction genre, who would he be as a mythological character himself. The author thought it to be a very interesting question and described himself to be Ghatotkacha. This mythological character from Mahabharata has magical traits such as the ability to fly, to increase or decrease in size and to become invisible. The author clarifies that these are some of the qualities that resembles with the powers of few characters in the book, that is in discussion at the meetup.
A member of MSB, Kanwarpal Singh, from the far western province of India was a little unhappy with the way the author left numerous cliffhangers in the book. This would be a good time to tell that the book Warlord of Ayodhya: Rebellion is the first half of the series. The author assured Kanwarpal, that the reason the cliffhanger was meticulously introduced, was for the readers to first know and understand the real plot of the story and the thrill. He assured that with the release of the second book (which he is already started working on) Warlord of Ayodhya: Resurrection, all the mysteries will be revealed and cliffhangers will be answered and solved. With few plethora of questions being queried by the readers to the author, time stood stand still.
At one point of time, it felt like old lost friends, all geographically located, met virtually to speak about common interests. As they say, all good things must come to an end, so did the meetup. After some intense and deep discussion on Indian mythology and the book Warlord of Ayodhya: Resurrection, the meetup came to an end. With the conclusion, Shatrujeet expressed his desire to write a book in the future, about the great war of Saraighat, as he has family ties from North Eastern part of India and he himself being part Assamese. At the end all the members of MSB, picked up their author signed book and gathered for a group online photo. My Secret Bookshelf, till we all meet again and remembering, its tagline, by the readers for the readers.
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