• Hi Ravinder sir, How are you? Your new book is all set to release. Are you tensed before it’s launch?
– I’m not tensed but I’m anxious. I’m looking forward to the reactions of my readers, how they’re going to take this story and yes, I’m excited as well.
• Your new book is titled ‘The Belated Bachelor Party’. Why is it ‘belated’? What’s the reason behind this title?
– Well, it is titled ‘belated’ because it’s the story of four married men who happened to realize that they never had a bachelor’s party before they got married and hence they wanted to plan one.
• The buddies Happy, MP and Raam from your first two novels are back again in this book. Do you think that’s the USP of this book?
– I think the USP of this book is friendship and the bond these four men holds. You’ve read about them in my first two novels, ‘I too had a love story’ and ‘Can love happen twice?’. I’m sure most of my readers will be extremely happy to know more about them and to see how their friendship lasted for so long.
• What is the book all about? What is its centre theme?
– As I said, the story is about friendship, a crazy vacation trip that went wrong leading to chaos and misadventures.
• It’s another book of yours based on your real life story. Why you choose to write novels inspired from your life stories?
– It’s because real life has so many interesting elements to talk about and the kind of impact real life stories do, is difficult to build with fiction.
• Ravinder Singh is known for his romantic heart touching novels. But this book is about friendship and reunion. Don’t you think the readers will miss that ‘romance factor’ here?
– Well, as an author I have to challenge myself and bring something new for my readers every time I write or will write. Of course, romance is a very powerful human emotion but so is friendship. When people are done and dusted with romance, they look back to friendship. So I’m talking about this emotion this time, but I’ll continue to write about romance and other aspects of relationships.
• So long your books were published from Penguin Random House. What made you shift to HarperCollins?
– That’s true, this book is coming from HarperCollins India. Once I was chitchatting with HarperCollins India CEO Anand about this journey and he had told me back then that Ravinder I see a book in this story of yours and he kind of convinced me to write one. As now he is at HarperCollins, I had to give this to them for publication and I believe they have done a wonderful job.
• Your readers keep waiting for your book launch events. Like your previous books, are you going to conduct book launch events in different cities for this book too?
– That’s right! I’m going to visit numerous cities for the book launch and it’s going to start from 1st June onward.
• Readers are crazy about your books and pre-orders for this book is already at hike. What you feel about this?
– I’m excited to see the excitement of my readers. For an author it is very satisfying to see the readers looking forward to a book and waiting for it anxiously.
• From ‘I too had a love story’ to ‘The belated bachelor party’, How much you have evolved as an author and as a person?
– I think that’s for my readers to decide how much I’ve evolved. My purpose to write my debut novel was very different. I became an author by chance, but today I’m an author by choice. I do a lot of research back and forth, and put in a lot of efforts in my works. I challenge myself to bring newer subjects and stories for my readers.
• Maintaining the ‘best seller’ rank for so many years is a tough job and you have lived up to it. What’s the secret behind this?
– The secret behind the ‘best seller’ rank is that your stories should have merit, it should be entertaining. The story and how you choose to tell the story, both are very important. Also you have to bring up something new every time, that’s the key.
• Any message for the readers?
– I request all the readers to legitimately buy the book and get rid of the pirated copies that’ll be circulated in the market very soon. We, the authors need the support of our readers. So I would request my readers to say ‘no’ to pirated books or free eBooks.
• Let’s end this chitchat with a quick rapid fire!
Favorite travel destination.
– London
The book you are currently reading.
– ‘A long way home’ by Mitali Meelan
All time favorite novel.
– The Kite Runner
One writer who inspires you.
– Not a specific author but different books inspire me like ‘The fault in your stars’ by John Green, ‘Forty rules of love’ by Elif Shafak.
• One word to describe Happy, MP and Raam.
– Happy – Always excited
MP – Cool Dude
Raam – Sober guy
Payal Roy