An Authors Afternoon with Anand Neelakantan

With Esha Chatterjee and Anand Neelakantan

18 May, 2017: I attended another edition of An Authors Afternoon at The Taj Bengal today. The guest author was Anand Neelakantan who is a novelist, cartoonist, and writer of short stories and television soaps.

Anand handing over a signed copy of his book

It was a session full of wit and humour at its best as Anand played out to the galleries. Anand’s latest novel The Rise of Shivagami is a prequel to the Bahubali trilogy which sets the background on which the immensely successful Bahubali series of films are based.

Though Anand enjoys writing short stories the most, he finds it the least remunerative on the monetary front. In contrast, the dumbed-down television soaps help him to earn a lot more.

Another very interesting fact about Anand is that his books Asura: Title of the Vanquished, Roll of the Dice and Rise of Kali present a narrative as seen from the eyes of those characters of our mythology and epics, like Ravana and Duryodhan, that happen to be the bad guy.

With Bickram, Sohini and Arindam at the special screening of Durga Sahoy

I attended few other meetings after the event and then dropped by at the special premiere of Arindam Sil-directed movie Durga Sahoy at the Inox at Quest Mall. The cast of Durga Sahoy and other guests attended the screening.

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