Almost every fiction book of author Chetan Bhagat has been made into a film. It appears that this time the author went one step ahead and incorporated the big screen element into promoting his book. On Monday, he revealed the cover and a movie-style promo of his new book The Girl in Room 105.
The book presents itself as an ‘unlove story’ between a Kashmiri Muslim woman and a Hindu man – revealed the author in a 17-minute-long Facebook live on Monday.
The idea behind releasing a film-style promo for the book, was apparently that since youngsters love videos, the promo would "bring them back to books".
The Girl in Room 105, published by Westland, will be released in October. Terming the book as "not a Chetan Bhagat love story", the author pointed out its "unlove story" tagline. The story revolves around Keshav Rajpurohit, who is from an IIT and teaches in a coaching centre, who is trying to "unlove" his ex-girlfriend Zara, a Kashmiri Muslim.
The dramatised promo has the lead, Keshav, asking his audience: "Have I told you my dad is a senior member of the RSS?"
The two-minute-long promo shows him drinking one night as he receives a message from Zara and goes to meet her upon her asking.
However, in the confusion about whether Zara sent those messages, the promo ends, leaving "an element of surprise" for the audience, as Chetan put it the Facebook live.
He said people will love the suspense and humour in the book, because it is "a funny kind of thriller" -- "a mystery, but a funny mystery".
The book cover reveal comes after Bhagat invited his fans to #GuessTheTitle in social media contests.
Answering questions from viewers, Bhagat said the "unloving” part of the story comes from his own experience. "I find it very difficult to get over people. I just can't move on. How can you move on when your heart is attached to someone," he said. "How can you unlove? It's not like unplug."
Asked about why he changed his genre, Bhagat responded that one cannot keep repeating the same formula just because it was a hit once.
Bhagat also answered a question about the protagonist's name -- Keshav -- which is in line with his practice of naming his lead characters after Krishna.
"Krishna's name is taken billions of times when you make that small change in a name," he said, adding it is a not a conicidence that his heroes' names have been based on Krishna since the last eight times.
A viewer asked Bhagat if a movie can be expected, as his books have continuously been cinematically adapted.
The movie will come later and my readers are more important, Bhagat said, adding that he likes to keep books exciting.
The Girl in Room 105 can be pre-ordered online on Amazon.
(IANS inputs)