She will ensure that she launches her book in a five-star hotel where everyone from Bunty to Babli to Dashrath Singh is invited, as is the family priest. It is another matter that by the end of the evening the husband has bought all 2,500 books that will ever be published so that he can then distribute them to kith and kin.

Everyone in the capital is writing books these days and Delhi has launched more titles than balloons in recent times. Suhel Seth takes a humorous look at the rather private world of budding authors and the very public launches of their literary offerings.

There was a time when every bored housewife in Delhi would get into business. Which meant she would underpay a few tailors and then start making salwar kameez sets for her entire family and her neighbours. A lot of this would be used by the husband to bribe municipal officials and an odd set would also find its way to the wife of some Government secretary. But thankfully all that has changed with what I call the software revolution. These bored housewives today have access to the computer and there’s a lot they tend to do with it. But perhaps the most involving pastime of these super-rich and super-bored housewives is the Shobhaa Dé syndrome. They all want to become authors. I guess even the husbands prefer it. Given the increasing costs of real estate in Delhi it is far better to provide for a silly computer than empty out a room for the woman to run a business. But then, housewives are not the only ones afflicted with the book affliction. It has now spread to retired police officers, retired and serving Foreign Service officers and suchlike.

There is also the odd restaurateur who, in the good old days, would have been happy serving you some fine butter chicken. Instead, he now wishes to bore the planet with a book on his grandfather’s original recipes.

To put it succinctly, everyone in Delhi and his mother is writing a book these days. Delhi has launched more books than balloons in the past three years and it seems that no one is taking a break. I am writing two books concurrently and I have been doing so for the last three years! There’s something for every book launch lover – so what if the last time they ever read a book was when they needed the number of a massage parlour from the Yellow Pages.

The Bored Housewife

She is the archetype first (and last) time author who has a doting husband dying to keep her busy and a family that believes time for intellectual nirvana has come. She will write anything as long as it can be published and there is no dearth of printing presses in Delhi. She will ensure that she launches her book in a five-star hotel where everyone from Bunty to Babli to Dashrath Singh is invited, as is the family priest. It is another matter that by the end of the evening the husband has bought all 2,500 books that will ever be published so that he can then distribute them to kith and kin. As also to his friends if he has any though the likelihood of them remaining friends will diminish once they’ve read the wife’s literary masterpiece!

Suhel Seth is the CEO of Equus Advertising. He is also a social commentator and writes on current affairs for several publications. He has acted in over 145 plays, done films for Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen and Mahesh Bhatt and is a regular on the public speaking circuit.

For complete story, subscribe to Verve Magazine or buy the Verve issue on stands now!