By Ganesh Saili
Images of budding authors of all shapes and sizes can be splashed across social media, and multiple platform releases are the norm these days.
I just wanted to remind you of my first book release in 1992. Mussoorie & Landour: Days of Wine & Roses was a chatty history of our hill station, published fifty-eight years after Charles Wilson, writing under the pseudonym of The Rambler, gave us A Mussoorie Miscellany in 1936.
‘Take you to Bombay, make you a heroine!’ teased my publisher as we set out. It is an old expression used by roadside Romeo’s in mofussil towns.
It is no secret that I never made it to Bollywood. ‘I wish I could tell him I am still waiting!’ I grumble.
Proving the adage that small books can have big launches, our book was launched in the ballroom of the iconic Savoy Hotel by the then Tourism Minister, Sukh Bans Kaur Pinder, a seven-time Member of Parliament from Gurdaspur, and her husband, then a second-term Police Commissioner of Delhi.
‘It gives me immense pleasure releasing Landour & Mussoorie: Days of Wine & Roses. It comes after five decades since the last book was published on this hill station!’ said the Chief Guest.
I recently saw, for the first time, a preserved original, handbound and stapled together, courtesy of Rahul Kohli, who collects anything and everything related to Dehradun-Mussoorie.
‘Why is old material on Mussoorie so expensive at auctions?’ he asks me.
My answer is simple: material on the summer capital of Shimla is available in abundance, but we, being a poor country cousin, are the odd ones out. We are a place where you ‘do-your-own-thing’, where folks continue to come to have a good time.
At that book launch, among the invitees was Colonel Gerald Powell, who lived in Wayside Cottage, Barlowganj. Resplendent in a tuxedo, he looked so elegant that soon an extra chair was screeching across the stage. Dressed like a character from a Dickens’ book, he looked like he had fallen through the roof to land upright on the stage.
Another book release was underway on the vast rolling lawns of the Circuit House (presently the Governor’s residence). Major-General Bhuvan Chand Khanduri, the Chief Minister, had consented to release Once Upon A Time in the Doon (Writings from the Green Valley) when the affable R. K. Mehra, owner of Rupa & Company, fluffed his lines.
We cringed! We bit our tongues! He had made a major faux pas ( pun intended) in introducing the Major-General as a mere Major B. C. Khandurie.
When it was his turn to speak, the Chief Minister took it in his stride: ‘Often, some of us in the army spend our lives in the barracks, far away from the daily grind of a civilian existence, and so civilians are unfamiliar with ranks. Mercifully, those in the armed forces know there is some difference between a major and a major-general!’
Of course, dear Reader, the physical size of the book doesn’t matter. Mine were not destined for a book release. The larger-format coffee-table books like Himalaya, Himalayan Mysteries, and A Passage Through India have been translated into several European languages, but these door-stoppers went straight from the godown to the bookshelf. After all, book releases cost money, and I understand the plight of my publisher, who probably felt like a waif with only small change left in his pockets after paying hefty bills to the printers, binders and book distributors. With expenses like these, who could afford a launch?
Another time, we had gathered at the Olive Bar, an eatery squatting under the shadow of Delhi’s Qutub Minar. Ruskin and I were fielding a battery of media representatives asking us about my biography of Ruskin Bond, Enduring Bond. The book is the story of our friendship dating back to 1967. Mercifully, it has endured sixty years in the hills.
‘Are you guys gay?’ yelled a journalist after the launch.
‘No, we are not!’ answered Ruskin, loud and clear. ‘We are just happy!’
And that’s the way it’s always been: small books have big launches, and often big books end up with none.
Ganesh Saili, born and home-grown in the hills, is among the select few whose words are illustrated by their pictures. He is the author of two dozen books, some translated into twenty languages, and his work has found recognition worldwide.
