Photo Essay – The Aloneness of Ruchir Sharma, Khan Market
The published author with his new book.
[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]
Is there a more intensely anxious feeling than to be a published writer and enter a bookshop to gaze upon one’s own book that has newly arrived in the world?
One afternoon The Delhi Walla sees author Ruchir Sharma enter Bahrisons Booksellers in Khan Market. He is in a blue shirt and white pants—this is also the color combination of the cover of his most recent book, The Rise and Fall of Nations: Forces of Change in a Post-Crisis World. The bookshop’s Mithilesh Singh greets the author and requests him to sign the copies of the Rise and Fall. The New York-based writer stands beside a lectern-like thing and inscribes his name in all the copies of his book.
No autograph or Selfie seeker appears. It seems that the customers in the bookshop are not aware that a writer is in their midst. Babita, the bookshop’s cashier, however, takes a photograph of Mr Sharma and his book from her cellphone.
While leaving, Mr Sharma is shown a stack of Half Lion: How PV Narasimha Rao Transformed India. That is the week’s bestselling book, he is told.
Mr Sharma nods and comes out on the market’s Front Lane. He pauses for a moment and then alone walks towards the direction of Faqir Chand and Sons bookshop. I keep looking at the published author until his blue shirt and white pants can no longer be seen.
Selfie please, mister author
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