NEW DELHI, April 27: The oft-voiced despair seemed a trifle bewildering tonight as Vikram Seth's publishers scurried to set up speakers outside the Habitat Centre auditorium to make sure that the hundreds of Delhiites eager to hear him read did not return disappointed. Seth, on his part, orchestrated the gathering with consummate ease and mesmerised all present with passages from his latest novel, An Equal Music (379 pages, Rs 500).Curiously, the diverse audience of bibliophiles and socialites alike were first made to hear a passage from Seth's travelogue From Heaven Lake. Even as the diminutive author was settling himself among the array of mikes, former UN bigshot, Bhaichand Patel, leapt to his feet and queried whether the lenspersons obstructing everybody else's view should not be packed off. Good idea, averred Seth, and bid the photographers to click away for two minutes and then be off. And in the meantime he regaled the choc-a-bloc auditorium with the concluding passage from thatbook, ending with: "You may now go."As the lenspersons meekly trooped off with their cameras, one wondered, has this performance been performed before or does this privacy junkie come prepared for any eventuality?Thereupon, Seth did not just launch into An Equal Music, he gave his captive readership (``the biggest ever, well over 600,'' exulted Penguin chief David Davidar) a rough guide to his novel, western classical music and the social and musical dynamics that govern string quartets.He deftly sidestepped the critical twists and turns that would've killed the suspense and introduced the audience to Michael Holmes, second violinist with the Maggiore quartet, his music and his loves. And what a coincidence, said Seth, while narrating the aftermath of Michael's life-changing performance: that particular hall seats 540, just like the Habitat auditorium.The question-answer session inevitably started with the literary coincidence of 1999: India's two leading writers publishing books on musicand love at the same time. Dismissing the so-called rivalry, Seth claimed that the only consolation was that Salman Rushdie too must be bombarded with this question all the time! Anyway, he said later, his reading self is not inclined towards fiction and most of all, not towards long novels, a dig at his own sprawling A Suitable Boy, which is now being translated into Bengali.A physician, on his part, wondered whether the prose in An Equal Music would offer the kind of tranquility music does, Seth boomed: "Yes! To be prescribed twice daily for a week." Seems it was not just the physician who decided to give the prescription a try; sales of signed copies were exceptionally brisk.
