It was in a smoky, blue-lit lounge in Mumbai that Shashi
Tharoor had launched author Ashwin
Sanghi's first book 'Chankaya's Chant' which went on to become a bestseller. So, on Saturday, when Tharoor appeared to launch Sanghi's latest 'Keepers of the Kalachakra'—this time at the sophisticated sunlit, green front lawn of JLF- the latter called the former his "lucky charm". Full of repartee, mirth and Tharoor's signature wordplay, this heaving session saw the two authors cover a vast conversational ground spanning history to the dark web. Space-time continuum, quantum physics, the idea that everyone may have a twin, whiskey as cure for writer's block, 'deja vu' and 'deja lu' were all part of the territory. "I've found that the most delightful question to ask is "What if"," said Sanghi, about the way he energises the writer in him. Once, for instance, he visited a temple in Kolkata and realised the deity looked like
Amitabh Bachchan. On stepping out, he saw a boy selling- besides agarbattis and pooja items-something called the 'Amitabh Chalisa'. This left the author wondering: "What if a thousand years later,
the cult of Amitabh has caught on and there are several temples and people start to wonder- just as we now do about our Ramas and Krishnas- "Could this have been a real man?" Such an overlap of
mythology and history is what gives rise to "mystery", said Sanghi, who has made the concoction his go-to genre.
What the panelists seemed to disagree on was the formula of success. While Sanghi said he swears by the words of a Patiala-peg-loving friend told him- "Success in life is 99 per cent luck and one percent bloody good luck"--Tharoor felt hard work couldn't be ruled out. "All the luck in the world cannot make up for a lazy person," he said. A happy interruption came in the form of author
Amish Tripathi who took the mike to say he had bought the latest works of both the authors and was looking forward to enjoying them. "Cross marketing," said Tripathi, explaining the interruption. "Well, it would make other authors
cross," quipped Tharoor. The politician's trademark wit also surfaced when someone asked Sanghi- a businessman who goes to work to keep his father happy and who aims to entertain readers with his thrillers- why he hadn't written about economics yet. "Like 'American diplomacy' and 'military intelligence', 'thrilling economics' is also an oxymoron," said Tharoor. Given that Sanghi is considering writing a book called '13 steps to a happy marriage', a woman in the audience- whose husband is in Singapore- asked if 'happy marriage' too was an oxymoron.
