Author’s Afternoon with Kunal Basu

April 17, 2013: Yesterday evening I was at the seventh edition of the Author’s Afternoon with writer Kunal Basu organized by Prabha Khaitan Foundation in association with The Taj Bengal and T2.

It turned out to be a very interesting evening with the author sharing his views, ideas and tastes.

Many thanks to talented actress Churni Ganguly for conducting the talks with great elan.

Besides the regular guests like Madhu Neotia, who has passion for books, there were three Bengali film directors of great repute – Aniek Datta, Toni and Arindam Sil – who attend the Author’s Afternoon. Ace film director Aparna Sen had directed her film A Japanese Wife in 2010 based on Kunal’s novel of the same name. The author said that he is often transported to another world imagery while penning his novels.

I alluded to Kolkata’s Zakaria Street and Kunal, in response, shared some aspects of his new novel on which he is currently working. It is based on a male sex worker and a migrant who comes to Kolkata and puts up at the Zakaria Street.

The Author’s Afternoon series has really taken off well since I first started it in July 2012 in collaboration with The Taj Bengal and T2. The idea behind this interactive series is to have different approach from the common book release functions that happen almost every alternate day. The group of invitees are also limited and most of them are celebs and achievers in their own way. The series, which started with Pramod Kumar KG, has so far had eminent authors and personalities like Sangeeta Bahadur, Amish Tripathi, Jeffrey Archer, Anupam Kher, Sanjay Chopra and of course Kunal Basu.

I hope to make this series very more interesting, I have received many congratulatory calls from many quarters for organising this series. I hope we would keep this good work on and bring in many other famous authors to Kolkata.
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