#Foreveralone No More

Covaco recently came out with his first book — Ladies, please! — Dating Truths by a Man. Peppered with his brand of humour — heavy on puns and situational, the book is Covaco’s attempt at a handy guidebook through the minefield of dating for men. According to Covaco, dating doesn’t exist in India. “The whole concept of ‘I’ll try someone out for a week’ is alien to us. You’d just get killed. In fact, by the end of this conversation, I would be getting ready to meet your mom if we were single,” he laughs, while digging into a sandwich at a suburban coffee shop.

The idea for the book, says Covaco, came about when Random House (the publishers) approached him to write something. “I’d never written a book before, the maximum I’ve written is a tweet, which is 140 characters and it’s so much easier,” he says. The material for most of the book has been culled from his years of experience observing people and talking to friends.

The first few chapters in the book trawl through Covaco’s own dating history, or misadventures, which he assures are real. From his school girlfriend dumping him (“I didn’t even know we were dating”), to girls leaving him for his better-looking friend, to falling in love multiple times, Covaco believes that he’s gained a fair bit of experience. “The information is useless to me now, so I figured why not try to make money out of it by writing a book,” says Covaco, who has been married for a few years.

While he says that most of his writing is straight from the heart, he credits his wife for being a barometer of his humour. “If my wife doesn’t like something, then I know it’s hilarious. So I say ‘baby can you just check this tweet I’m putting up and she says “no that’s not that great’. Then I tweet it and get a thousand retweets,” he states, with a shrug.

His book has been endorsed by quotes from ‘Amitabh Bachan’, Priyanka Chopa’, and ‘Saif Ali Khann’. “I realised that the real Amitabh Bachchan would never call me and neither would the others, so we changed one letter. At least, they can’t sue me,” says Covaco, who is currently working on Fool’s Month,  a political-economic news  satire show with Menon for Comedy Central.

shikha.kumar@expressindia.com