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Fiction on flannelled gentry
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A follow-up on Harimohan Paruvu’s ‘The men within’
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Photo: K. Ramesh Babu
Harimohan Paruvu during the book launch.
In less than a year since its launch, Harimohan Paruvu’s The men within (Indialog, Rs. 225) is already into its third print run. The only work of fiction in Indian English associated with the flannelled game, the 100 copies o
n offer at the launch were sold out even before the celebration began at the Secunderabad Club shortly after.
Popular bookstores such as A.A. Husain, Akshara and Himalaya took to it straightaway, while Walden and Crossword warmed up to it before long. That Meenakshi Mukherjee, eminent literary critic and former faculty member of Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, found it the ideal gift was early encouragement for Harimohan, an engineer and investment banker.
The World Cup in the Caribbean propped up the book’s progress, but India’s dismal showing saw it plummet too, what with the general decline in interest for the game, following the ignominious exit by the men in blue. But in about a month after its release, 1000 copies had already been sold. The first review by the senior cricket writer and author, Rajan Bala, was just the shot in the arm Harimohan had been looking for to reach a larger readership.
A Bangalore launch had Rajan Bala, sportscaster Charu Sharma and novelist Anita Nair effusively eulogising the work. Brisk sales apart, the media coverage that followed was extensive too.
To make a mark in Mumbai, the nation’s commercial capital, would mean exposure at an all India level. That end was met at Crossword.
The recent launch in Pune by C.P. Surendran and Chandu Borde was widely attended too. Borde, former Test cricketer, coach and selector, urged all coaches and young cricketers to read the book.
The recent boost was an order for 465 books from the Raja Rammohan Roy Trust in Kolkata for distribution to libraries across the country.
The caravan now moves to Chennai, where the book will be launched by former Indian opener Krishnamachari Srikkanth in the last week of February.
A. JOSEPH ANTONY
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