Celebrity No 1

Seth began reading Two Lives — the story of his dentist great uncle Shanti and his German wife Henny. He started at the beginning of the book about how he went to London at 17 and stayed at their house.

Around 10 minutes later, the crowd stirred. Aamir Khan, looking dapper in a white shirt, sat down in the first row on the extreme left hand side. Everyone craned their necks for a better look and the cameramen rushed to get pictures. Then, the cameramen settled down and Vikram continued reading.

He came to the bit about how his uncle used to operate as a one-handed dentist. He told Aamir ‘‘Can you come up, here?’’ Aamir sportingly agreed. Vikram asked him to open his mouth and then standing on the right side of the chair, demonstrated how a one-handed uncle Shanti used to operate. The crowd greeted this with thunderous applause.

The reading was over and he told the audience to ask questions. I had been dying to ask him about a very interesting passage early on the book which tips you off about the rest. It’s when his uncle Shanti gives the gift of a fighting fish to his German friend Hans and the fish gobbles up all the other fish in the aquarium. Seth writes though they did not know it then, it was like the aquarium of history which was going to gobble up all of them.

Soon, the question and answer session was over and it was announced Seth would autograph books. As soon as this happened, a few rushed for autographs but all the cameramen and most of the audience rushed to Aamir Khan.

I went to the stage and requested Seth to write a sequel to the Golden Gate. He said: you will have to write a letter to my muse.

As I left the hall, cameramen were still photographing the movie star. In the pecking order of celebrities, I could see, Seth was not the top man.