In Conversation with Abhishek Bhattacharya

Will Smith once said in an interview,

“I was very dumb when I was 14. See, no Twitter, no Facebook when I was 14. So I was dumb, but I was dumb in private.”

I was born in the 80s and grew up in the 90s. So I kind of relate to what Will Smith says here and feel fortunate to have a childhood which wasn’t overtaken by the internet. This is also the reason, any literature which talks about the era from the 80s to 90s, instantly feels like a piece of my childhood. Hence, when I came to know about a novel Lollypops to Cigarettes: Walking Down Your Memory Lane, where protagonist was regaling his growing up in that time, I knew I had to read it. However, honestly, I did not have many expectations from it.

To my complete and pleasant surprise, the book turned out to be one of my best reads of 2020. Here’s my brief review of the book.

Read a detailed review of this book here

I wanted to connect with the author for more reasons than one this time. Firstly, of course, to extend my invitation to him for being a part of the Author Collaborative. But more because he gave me a thoroughly enjoyable nostalgia ride, so I wanted to thank him for that.

You can only imagine my happiness when he agreed to read my book. Here is his brief review of The Art of Being Grateful & Other Stories.

Tonight, after slight delays, we talked our hearts out about books and much more.

I had so many questions to ask, but I limited them to the following ones.

Check out the answers to these questions here

After a very long time, I thoroughly enjoyed answering the questions asked to me. Here’s a look at what Abhishek put forth in his Q&A to me.

The rapid fire was definitely the highlight, more so because we both were candid and quirky in our questions as well as answers. Here’s what I asked him.