Despite the rain and traffic, July 12 saw AMPM on Park Street packed with bookworms as early as 4pm. The reason? Aanchal Malhotra dropped by for the Kolkata launch of her novel, The Book of Everlasting Things. The launch coincided with the first on-ground event of Karuna’s Kitaab Club, hosted by author Karuna Ezara Parikh. My Kolkata had a ringside view as the two authors chatted about the book, writing and more.
Aanchal started the event by professing her love for the City of Joy. “I love Kolkata as a city. I take any excuse to come down here, but also because Karuna lives here. It's very special to be interviewed by someone who knows me so well, not just as a person, but as a writer,” she said.
Karuna then recounted how she first met Aanchal six years ago. Almost serendipitous, the duo met back then to launch Remnants of a Separation (Aanchal’s debut novel) in Kolkata. “The day after the launch, we took a walk around Hindustan Park and were looking at these century-old buildings. I asked her if she would ever think about writing fiction, and she told me, ‘I have a story in mind.’ Over a cup of coffee, she told me every detail of what would become, The Book of Everlasting Things,” Karuna smiled.
Aanchal opened up about how she started writing her new book even before Remnants…. “I made the first character sketch for this book in December 2016. When you work with history, you sometimes have a duty to transcribe stories as they happened. But you also start dreaming about things that happen around it. Since it was the Partition, there were of course stories of violence and grief, but also so many stories of hope and survival. I wanted to write about the other side of the Partition, which had love and kindness. I had been dreaming about this for a year by the time I met Karuna.”
Karuna Ezara Parikh (left) in conversation with Aanchal Malhotra
The premise of her new book is evocative of Aanchal’s words. The Book of Everlasting Things follows a passionate love story that brews between Samir Vij, a perfumer, and Firdaus Khan, a calligrapher, who find themselves on opposite sides of the border in 1947. While it draws much of its empathy for the era from Aanchal’s previous work, it effortlessly carves its own space.
“Almost everything in the book is borrowed from reality. From the people I know and the things I have read about. One of the characters in this book is based on my Nana. He made soaps and shampoos, and put essences in them. He would bring home the essences he didn’t use, and put them in the cooler with some water. The whole house would smell of rose one day, of aloe vera the other, and jasmine the day after that. The idea of one person creating a fragrant environment for his family was an act of beauty,” Aanchal explained.
Grace Muivah, brand lead of Bright Hospitality, created the cocktails, (L-R) Basil, Citrus and Rose, which were inspired by flavour profiles from the book
Karuna drew from her own experience of changing mediums while writing a book of poetry after a novel. She said, “As a woman, people didn’t acknowledge that I was a writer who could write in different ways. They asked how I could do both things?” Aanchal added that there was a definite challenge while moving to fiction, “People often ask if we can occupy a new space, beyond the one we have worked so hard to occupy. In the end, you have to give yourself agency.”
Aanchal was thronged by readers after the chat. (Left) ‘It was an amazing conversation, and the questions were so thoughtfully curated. The book is beautiful, it reads like poetry and feels like magic,’ said Sohini Sarkar, business development head at The Jurni. (Right) Rhitama Basak, a doctoral student of Islam, Society and Culture at Brown University, expressed her excitement after getting her hands on Aanchal’s new book. ‘I loved how she talked about collective memory, and the realisation that we are a people divided,’ she said
The chat concluded with book signings, and a giveaway of ittars from M. L. Ramnarain Perfumers, which Aanchal especially chose based on her characters. These smells were complimented by fresh jasmine from Mallick Ghat Flower Market, procured by her that very morning.
“The entire publishing industry moved to Zoom during the pandemic. I wanted to start on-ground Kitaab Club events soon, and when Aanchal told me that she hadn't done a Kolkata launch for her novel yet, the opportunity presented itself perfectly. This took many sleepless nights to execute, but I was so happy to see people turn up, even when we were past capacity. My aim is to bring readers and storytellers together to make more magic,” Karuna signed off.
