Apparao Galleries at the Leela Palace, Chennai organized an interactive book reading session of the book “Songs of the Mist” by its author Shashi – A renowned spiritual blogger in India and a prolific writer of the Japanese poetry form – Haiku, avid photographer who has shot photos pan India’s spiritual spots!. Above all, the author – is a fellow blogger at Chennai Bloggers Club!
The book introduction was totally different. Chennai-based singer Swetha Sriram, a student of Bombay Jayashri, with the accompaniments Vittal Rangan on violin and Tanjavur Praveen on mridangam performed songs and ragams representing nature, philosophy and spirituality.
Started with her first song
“sarva-dharman parityajya mam ekam saranam vraja“
quoting verses from the Gita, followed by next song
“thunGatharanGae ganGae jaya thunGatharanGae ganGae“
about the River Goddess Ganges.
Mr. Thimeri N Murari -An Indian novelist, journalist, playwright, screenwriter and an author of fourteen published novels who has written a foreword to this book shared the pride of introducing this book.
Mr. Shashidhar Sharma – took it forward sharing his experiences about what inspired him to write this book, how it happened, and introduced and thanked the people behind it!
While the author narrated about the book, Songs of the Mist — the first part of The Monk Key series, – A spiritual-fiction by genre, the book deals with a love story, which is interwoven with the morals preached in the Bhagavad Gita.
“This is a story that I’ve had within me for over three decades. It started when I visited Rishikesh in 1986. The serenity and the mystic nature of the place has affected me since.
Travelling to Rishikesh and staying with the sadhus in the Himalayas, the blogger developed an urge to write about his experience. “I am an avid blogger and had written about everything I’ve experienced. But that wasn’t enough. I wanted the younger generation to understand spirituality,” he explains, recalling his experience with a youngster who asked ‘What is the point of being spiritual?’
“That gave me a push and I felt a book like this should have an existence. What is a better way to convey this than a love story?” asks the writer who has been ranked as the top spiritual blogger in India.
A love story in a spiritual backdrop? He laughs, “Yes, I am often questioned about this. But books these days don’t deal with love; it’s more of lust. So for me, writing about love wasn’t challenging. But I had to hit the right balance between that and spirituality,” he added! Non-stop applause for a while.
The author concluded with the announcement of his next book on which he is now working on a coffee table book of the same genre (love-cum-spirituality) and also on the next volume of the Monk Key series. “I will be completing the books soon and will launch it by 2017,”
Ms. Sairam then sang the Mahakavi Bharathiyar song
“ethanai kodi inbam vaithai iraiva, irava”
thanking the God for all the precious pleasures he has given us. The evening concluded with the song
“ Hey Govindhu Hey Gopala”
by Surdas
The guest apperance
There was also a presentation of paintings by the city based – artist N Ramachandran and Mumbai based Bhawana. These paintings have been curated to reflect the book’s subject.
The promotional video of the book
Signing out of the event taking a photo with the spiritual author
and a signed copy of the book
with lots of expectations that this book will definitely create a spiritual impact among the youngsters!
To buy this book: https://notionpress.com/read/songs-of-the-mist
A succinct summing of the event, Jothi sir. Looks like you had a good time with music, talk and the book, not forgetting CBC.
NICE！