Meeting with the Master Storyteller

Yes.. I am referring to Lord Jeffrey Archer, who was in Bangalore, last week. I would have missed the event altogether if it had not been for a chuntu advertisement. The Sunday Times included a small ad 'bout the author's book-signing event. I called the Senior Arien, from whom I inherited my interest in books, and asked if he would accompany me to the book signing event. He agreed immediately. The Arien sulked a bit because I had not invited him. Well, he is not that into books and he comes home only around 10 pm and he knows this.

So, at 5:30 pm on Wednesday, 9th March 2011, myself and the Senior Arien were on our way to the Reliance Time-out outlet on Cunningham Road. Unfortunately, the store had no idea 'bout the number of folks who would turn up on a weekday at 6 pm. The number of chairs were few and occupied by the time we entered the place. The author, Lord Jeffrey Archer, entered the building and then moved to the dias around 7 pm. He kept the crowd enthralled with anecdotes, his success-story shared in a self-deprecating manner, references to Indian celebrities such as Sachin Tendulkar and R K Narayan, making the audience Whooop in delight. He also tackled questions from the audience, some of whom were ~9 years of age, while others were as old as 60. All this with a twinkle in his eye and a Grrowwl for the photographers who annoyed him.

It was after 8 by the time we pushed our way to the dias. It took him a second to sign his name before we were out of the dias. The queue, with folks yet to get his signature on the book, was right up to the entrance of the outlet. The senior Arien, who was completely tired after standing for two straight 2 hours, realized that he was better off than the guy who was still standing at the queue :D It was after 9 wen we finally reached home. Surprisingly, the Arien was at home and I was late. I bladed him to death 'bout my experience. He wanted to know if I managed to get a picture of myself with the author and my response was to show him this snap. What you are seeing is 1/4 of the actual queue. The fact that Jeffrey Archer even agreed to sign all the books was very generous of him. Overall a nice experience.