Literary

Kolkata was Nagarkar's second stop on his 15-city tour.

 

Nagarkar, 28, has six best-selling novels to his credit.

 

Even before the event began, the bookstore was bulging at the seams with the readers and fans of Nagarkar and his novels, especially the youth brigade, most of whom did not mind standing for the over one-hour long session.

 

She Swiped Right Into My Heart is about two sisters, Shibani and Tushita, their friend Geet, and two boys Rudra and Vivaan. Shibani, a biker by passion, is an extreme feminist and a BFF to Geet, who is one of the most unpopular girls in the college. As relationships between the different characters develop and unravel, misunderstanding and jealousies take centre stage, as an heretofore unknown aspect of Shivani comes to the forefront, each character is forced to make a decision about himself or herself, decisions that will not only affect themselves but their loved ones too.

 

Talking about the book, during the launch at STORY, Nagarkar said, "I had two clear ideas in my mind. Two points that I wanted to emphasise. One, why should only attractive girls be brought to the forefront? Geet is an unpopular girl in her class, often called a nerd or a freak. But to me it is not about the looks but the confidence that you carry in your soul."

 

"The second point that I wanted to emphasise on was the LGBT issue," continued Nagarkar. "We often speak about them on social media, but we do not want them in our own society. It is time to accept them as one of ourselves, not be ashamed of them."

 

Nagarkar used the example of limited number of people being left-handed compared to the large number of right-handed people. "If we can accept the left-handed people, why do we differentiate those who gay or transgender? he asked.

 

He invited Sarthak, an activist of the LGBT community in Kolkata, to the dais, who spoke eloquently about the community, about issues of sexuality and gender orientation.

 

Talking about negative feedback, Nagarkar said that he always took constructive criticism in his stride while rejected those baseless. One of his readers from the South once pointed out that he used a lot Hindi quotes in his novels and they found it difficult to follow. "If you notice carefully, I have avoided using Hindi quotes in my last two novels."

 

The crowd peppered him with questions ranging from why he didn't write about romantic characters who were slightly older to why didn't he write thrillers and detective novels, from what would be his tips for upcoming writers to how did he decides on the book titles, from his passion about writing to if his fiancée would feature in a forthcoming novel, and more.

 

But for someone with an engineering degree and a management degree under his belt, and who is often invited to talk as a motivational speaker, fielding these questions was easy.

 

"Inspired from real life incidents, Sudeep, with his simple style of writing, has become one of the most popular authors amongst the youth today," said Sidharth Pansari, Chief STORYteller, STORY, Primarc Retail division.

 

Nagarkar's first book -- Few Things Left Unsaid -- was published in 2011. Most of his books have topped the charts, including on Amazon.

 

Nagarkar won the Youth Achievers Award in 2013. He was awarded Celebrity Author of 2013 by Amazon.

 

Suddep Nagarkar's latest book, She Swiped Right Into My Heart is published by Penguin Random House and priced at Rs 175. The book is available at STORY.

 

The book launch concluded with Nagarkar inviting his fans for a photo op and then patiently smiled his way through innumerable selfie requests while signing books simultaneously.

 

 

Images: Launch of Sudeep Nagarkar's book at STORY, Kolkata