The Tales Pensieve

Love is in the Air!!

Astor Hotel in Shakespeare Sarani of Kolkata was all abuzz with excitement. All in anticipation of a book launching event – ’s third novel – You’ve Got the Wrong Girl published by Hachette India. Following closely on the heels of her female erotica, Sita’s Curse, this new book has generated considerable amount of interest among readers. The evening began on a high note when the author looking graceful in a pink saree along with Joy Sengupta, the versatile actor and Srijit Mukherjee, the renowned film director entered the auditorium. The event unfolded with an intriguing trailer of the book being shown on the screen and lilting music in the background adding to the ambience.

Swarup Dutta, the historian then spoke about the mythological background of the novel based on the eternal love saga of Dushyant and Shakuntala in Kalidasa’s seven act play. The story of the search for true love is eternal. As he said, “Romance is an unending story.” In this case however it was not the male gaze but a woman thinking like a man. Sreemoyee Piu Kundu extended it further when she elaborated on her work saying the book questioned gender stereotypes.  How the life of Dushyant changes over one night and how he goes searching for his love across cities and cultures….”a multi-city rip-roaring adventure’’. She also said how lad-lit is a genre hitherto unexplored in India whereas there has almost been an explosion of chick lit. Personally, for her swapping roles and getting into the male mind was rather stimulating, she said.

Later Joy Sengupta and Supreeta read out some interesting parts of the story which again sparked off some discussion on the male-female gender divide. Sreemoyee spoke about how gender roles are being re-examined and the concept of love, lust and relationships are changing in today’s world. When questioned about how it was to get into the minds of the women characters both Joy and Srijit replied that for a creator  getting into  the minds of  any character be it of any gender is equally  pertinent and spontaneous. This interesting conversation drew lot of humorous quips and comments from the audience as well. When Sreemoyee asked, “What if the boy is waiting for the girl to rescue him” instead of the usual damsel in distress? A reader said who saves whom is not so important…any kind of gender bias is to be avoided. There were some quips about the usage of wrong girl in the title of the book too.

It was a fun evening with Paroma and Lagna singing melodious tunes to boot. And setting the mood right for the Valentine week. Love was in the air!! The guests enjoyed the wine and delicacies served throughout. The mood was high on expectations… What was “You’ve got the wrong girl’’ to be like?