More on 3 ZM

Ok - the new born (pyar se usko log 3ZM kehetey hai) is not so invisible anymore. From Shantiniketan (how cool is that!) Keya Sarkar, who owns a bookstore and library and lifestyle store writes to me, saying she has got a catalogue in which my book features and she has ordered copies. 3ZM, like all newborns, needed that little smack on the bottom that the Obgyn gives, to start its journey into the real world (Note my smooth transition to americanisms like Obgyn, and not gynac or gynae in good old Indian-English). And the smack has been delivered by Keya. Thank you! (And from here on, I will rest this parallel of 3ZM and newborn baby. It's not a metaphor to grind for too long.)
Then my publisher sends me rapid and wonderfully multisyllabic emails, getting set to tie down dates for A LAUNCH. yes, a real one. With celebs reading from the book and all. And people air-kissing each other before and after.
On top of it, my friend Phillip George from Thiruvananthapuram writes saying there's a smart poster of my book cover in a bookstore there. I am strewing roses from my hat with delight hearing this.
Niece 1 calls most thrilled that the book is in her hands. She regretfully tells me that the fancy paper that she works for "does not carry reviews of Indian writers". Get this: this is a paper that has the word India in its masthead. Go figure.
Almost as absurd as the lady in The Library in Pune who I went to see about holding a reading there. "Is there a UK connection in the book?" she asks. When I look down and mumble, no miss, or sorry teacher, she looks politely at me and calls the convo to a halt. "Then we cant do anything. There are many bookstores you can approach." (ya like i didnt know, lady). Later I thought, one of the characters in 3ZM travels from Chicago to Mumbai. He must have had a London stopover. Dang and Drat! So why didnt I tell the lady there was a UK connection in my book, after all. Shya...silly me.
But never mind. Tomorrow I will set out looking for Friends in High Places in the Media.
Some are born pushy, others cultivate pushiness, and some have pushiness thrust upon them. Me - the third of the above categories.
Meanwhile, one media person casually asks me: "Is your book potentially controversial? Do you bash anyone, or is there some shocking abuse, or some such stuff? Kuch halla hoga kya, over this book? Besmirched some historical figures?"
I'm afraid the answer to that is no.