Rupleena Bose: Award-Winning Screenwriter, Actor & Professor in Conversation with Avantika Mehta

OutlookIndia

Outlook’s senior-associate-editor Avantika Mehta in conversation with the author Rupleena Bose. Rupleena Bose serves as an associate professor at Sri Venkateshwara College, University of Delhi.She has written several screenplays and a non-fiction film titled You Don’t Belong. which has won a National Film Award. She has been a Charles Wallace India trust scholarship holder for creative writing. she is also an occasional actor and has co-written a non-fiction book on the history of film festivals titled ‘In the Life of a Film Festival’ (Harper Collins,2018). Her debut novel, just released, is called 'Summer Of Then'.   Follow us:  Website: https://www.outlookindia.com/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Outlookindia  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/outlookindia/  X: https://twitter.com/Outlookindia  Whatsapp: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaNrF3v0AgWLA6OnJH0R  Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@OutlookMagazine  Dailymotion: https://www.dailymotion.com/outlookindia   #NationalFilmAward #FilmFestivals #IntheLifeofaFilmFestival #SummerofThen #Screenplays #NonFictionFilm #Writer #Author

Transcript

00:00Welcome to Outlook Talks. We're sitting with Ruplina Bhose and we're going to discuss her

00:16debut novel, The Summer of Ben. I read your book and I have to say it was really impressive.

00:22What an impressive debut and everyone is saying it, right? Are you happy with it?

00:27Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I mean more people read it, more people like it. Of course,

00:31what else do you want? That's exactly what a writer would like. Of course. A lot of people

00:36are saying that this is one of the most contemporary, set in a more contemporary

00:40situation than other Indian novels of late. Can I ask you why you decided to set it in this

00:46particular decade? Did it have anything to do with the politics or it has been compared, you know?

00:53Yeah, basically, you know, I read all these novels, like I was a big fan of Rachel Kask,

00:58I was a big fan of Sheila Reddy, lot of these writers, Deborah Levy and they used to write

01:03about women and it was contemporary, women were going on holidays, discovering their sexuality,

01:08love, desire, betrayal and I just felt that why can't we have a novel about us and about like

01:15somebody who's also flawed maybe, you know? And if you're writing about India, you cannot bypass

01:21the politics of what is happening. So, while it is set in 2010 to 20, which is where it ends,

01:28you know, you could also look at it as something which, you know, which could be this decade as

01:33well. But I needed to set it a little apart for, you know, because sometimes you can't see a lot

01:38of things directly, particularly, you know, the political, larger political aspects.

01:42So, it is a little bit like the coming of age, even though your protagonist is 20,

01:47in the sense of she's really growing into herself, right? And a little bit is set against the coming

01:52of age of India as well, where India sort of becomes this global power and all these people

01:57become super rich, which is something you address in the book, the caste, the class difference,

02:02the growing inequalities. Do you want to speak a little bit about that? Why this decision to

02:06talk about that and so poignantly? Yeah, you know, the thing is that I, what I felt was that,

02:13you know, India, in India, you know, you can actually, if you'd like, I mean, if you compare

02:18it to a Bangladesh, Pakistan, a lot of other countries, India, you can, if you are well educated,

02:23if you go through good schooling, good education at some point of time, I'm not talking about the

02:27India of today, honestly, but like maybe the 2000s, you could do anything, you had the desire,

02:33you could try to do anything. But actually, it's not true. I mean, somewhere, you are bound by

02:39your class and my protagonist, even though and that's why I put a teacher at the helm of it,

02:45an English teacher, because firstly, we don't see novels like that in India, at least I didn't find

02:51a contemporary English teacher, because you're also doing something which is very interesting,

02:56like how many people read literature, how many people read books. So that observation of inside,

03:02outside, what is happening in academia, in your city, in yourself, and of course, the

03:07realization that class is very important. So that is something which I needed to have my

03:13protagonist talk about, because that is what makes her. It's almost a character in your novel,

03:18the class. Class is almost a character in your novel, right? But you know, some of it is also

03:23unconscious, I would say, I mean, when I finished it, I realized that, oh, okay. And I think,

03:29yeah. Were you feeling those feelings?

03:32After I finished it, I felt that, oh, okay, there's a lot of class in it.

03:36It's not, I mean, I didn't set out to write about it, but I set out to definitely write about

03:41this girl vis-a-vis the nation, you know, this girl vis-a-vis the city.

03:46And then set it into very, very strong Indian cities, Calcutta and Delhi.

03:50Yeah.

03:50Now, who could not be more different, even the cities?

03:53Yeah.

03:54So you grew up in Calcutta?

03:55No, I grew up in Madras, actually, which is not in the book.

04:00So I grew up in Madras, I before that, actually, I was born in Patna.

04:04So and then I came to Delhi and I did my college here.

04:08And now you teach at?

04:09I teach in Delhi.

04:10Sri Venkateshwar College.

04:11Yes, I teach there.

04:12How is that, meeting all these young people? It's something you mention also in the book,

04:16right? There's a whole thread of a Muslim boy who gets killed during an honor killing.

04:24Is that something that was close to your heart? There are obviously such stories and then around

04:28the time you were writing the book, there was the Ankit Saxena case, you know, and it was all over.

04:33Yeah.

04:34Was that sort of where you drew the inspiration from?

04:37You know, like, this didn't happen, this incident didn't happen.

04:40But what happened was like, the fact is that when I was writing Summer of Them,

04:45I was not teaching at that time, I was on a long leave for my PhD.

04:49So it was April 2020 was when I started it.

04:52And I remember this moment, that moment, I said, Oh, my God, there's a pandemic,

04:56I need to escape, I need to think about nicer things, a different decade, you know, like parties

05:02and, you know, everything else that is in a different decade.

05:06Everything was not possible at that point of time in April 2020.

05:10And that's when I started writing. So I was actually not even a teacher at that time.

05:13I had not taught for almost three and a half years.

05:16So which is why it felt like becoming someone else.

05:20And somehow this boy's character just came, I guess, the subconscious of the politics of the

05:25nation. When I started writing, I didn't plan it.

05:29So you didn't, did you plot this novel a little bit even?

05:31Or was it like one of those pancers?

05:34No, I didn't plot it a bit. Actually, the primary character which I got was Pat.

05:40But I realized that I can't tell Pat's story in first person.

05:43I have to be someone else and then Pat comes in.

05:46So yeah, that was the starting. The primary objective was this woman,

05:51two men she meets and parallelly Pat's story of being a teacher.

05:56Is that why the character is unnamed?

05:59Yeah, I guess. I didn't need to name it. I mean, I had a name in my head.

06:04But then I realized like 40-50 pages have gone and the name is not required.

06:09To be honest, I read 40-50 pages before I realized you had named the character.

06:12I was like, what's her name?

06:14And also I wanted it to be like a something like every person,

06:18like, you know, when you anyway, when you say I, there is like, you know,

06:21an immediate recognition.

06:23So whoever is reading it can be their I.

06:26That's a good tactic to get people to sort of identify.

06:28Yeah, yeah.

06:29Though I don't think they'll have trouble identifying with the character.

06:32And I hope so.

06:33No, of course, a young woman in her 20s in a love triangle is.

06:36Yeah.

06:38Tell me a little bit more about the motivations behind this book.

06:41You said you wanted to write about all the things that weren't happening during the pandemic.

06:45But when you're reading this book, there's also a lot about class envy.

06:48There's a lot, like I said, class and caste are a character.

06:52You know, even when she marries the upper caste man,

06:55the mother-in-law says you should be happy to take his last name.

06:59Some of these things, do they happen from your own experiences?

07:02Or have you drawn from experiences around you?

07:05No, you know, I have not from, they're definitely not from my own experience.

07:10But having said that, you know, I remember somebody told me that,

07:12oh, you know, people often say that, oh, caste is for,

07:16we never talked about caste.

07:17You know, amongst this very educated public school lot,

07:20we often say that we don't talk about caste.

07:23And somebody said, that's because, you know, you didn't have to.

07:25If you were me, you would have known, you know, you would have talked about caste.

07:29And I think that is what stayed in my head.

07:32And the caste aspect, you know, actually comes from the grandmother story.

07:37Because that is where, you know, she has a relationship and that guy is a Brahmin.

07:42So that was what I wanted to essentially highlight.

07:45But the fact that somewhere, you know, some of these things sort of spill over decades.

07:50Well, of course, because it is a pervasive topic in India, right?

07:53So it's funny.

07:54I like that about the book.

07:56I like even that scene where the mother-in-law is talking because it was very real.

08:00You know, something that you don't see often in contemporary novels,

08:04especially about, you know, love stories and so on.

08:06They just gloss over this stuff.

08:07I like that you didn't gloss over it.

08:09Was that a conscious decision?

08:12Yeah, I mean, it could have.

08:13I could have removed a couple of lines in the subsequent drafts.

08:17But then I didn't because to me, it had to resonate with the grandmother's story.

08:20Because that is what reveals in the end that the guy that she likes, you know, like,

08:24whatever, there's a caste angle to it.

08:26So which is why I thought that I have to keep these two parallel.

08:29Because they are in a way parallel.

08:30They are in a way parallel.

08:32You mentioned the grandmother.

08:33And I can't help noticing that you also dedicated the book to your grandma, right?

08:39Can you tell me a little bit about your grandma?

08:41What was she like?

08:41She obviously made an impression.

08:43She's the teller of stories.

08:44Yeah, she used to tell a lot of stories.

08:46You know, let me qualify this book and his experiences.

08:49I've got nothing to do with her at all.

08:51But what happened was like, you know, because my grandmother would be constantly

08:55telling me stories.

08:56And I think I was one of those very weird kids, I think, who was like, from age 10,

09:01I would say, I want to be a writer, I want to be a professor.

09:04You know, so like, very weird.

09:06And I would be reading all the time.

09:08My grandmother would also be like telling all kinds of stories, like Bengali stories,

09:12you know, like Tagore, of course, a lot of Tagore.

09:15Like what?

09:16Tell us a story.

09:18Tagore, she told me all of the ghost stories, a lot of ghost stories she would tell me.

09:22And Tagore, you know, Gora was a story that she said she had first told me about.

09:28Then so many, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee was something I think before reading, I heard

09:33the whole story in parts.

09:35So those, which is why I tell her that.

09:38And which is why your next one might be a detective novel.

09:41Yeah, yeah.

09:42It might be, let's see.

09:44I think that's lovely.

09:45And you have qualified and said this has nothing to do with, like the story isn't.

09:49But bringing in this grandmother's character and so on, there's a lot in here about the

09:54interior voices of women, you know, which is, which we don't see so often, especially

09:58in Indian literature.

10:00Again, I want to ask you, was that a sort of conscious decision to make it so interior,

10:05so within themselves, you know, almost always thinking, your characters are almost always

10:09talking to themselves in the book.

10:11And now, obviously, as women, you and I know, we are perpetually thinking, right, you are

10:15always thinking about what to do and how to be careful and how to like, even, even how

10:20to keep your head.

10:20And yeah, right.

10:22So all of this came out very beautifully.

10:24I have to ask you some of these characters that you made, like Riya's character and so

10:28on, were they based on people that you knew?

10:31Did you sort of like, pick them up from, you know, your experiences?

10:36Or maybe just like watching society?

10:38No, definitely some of the characters, there are little bits of people I have taken, not

10:41Riya.

10:42Riya is a totally imaginary character.

10:44She's very real.

10:45Like Viola as well.

10:47But there's certain things, obviously, which I've merged, like two people I know, I've

10:50taken a little aspect of them, merged it with another person.

10:54But one thing about the grandmother, I must say that my grandmother was a widow.

10:58So, you know, I really didn't know many things about her personal life.

11:02You know, I only knew about the things that she would tell me about stories.

11:06So I think that was the subconscious why I created this character.

11:09So there is that as well.

11:10And is that a thread that you've seen across your childhood and so on?

11:15Because here's what I've noticed in the book, right?

11:17Is a lot of the stuff is very personal, in the sense of these are things that most people

11:23don't talk about often.

11:24And often, like you said, you won't know your grandmother's personal stories, you won't

11:28know your mother's backstory.

11:29They don't share them with us, right?

11:31And then there's a sense in your book of the super candidness, where all these stories

11:36are being shared, like, just simply without any, you know, coyness, anything, even the

11:41affair and so on.

11:43How did that feel?

11:44Like, what was the reaction to that?

11:45How did other people, your editors, agents react to the candidness of your book?

11:50Yeah, you know, they really liked it.

11:51I must say when I sent it to my agent first, and she really liked it.

11:56She said, I have not read anything like this, you know, and then she compared it to several

12:00female writers who had not read at that point of time.

12:02I'd read Sally Rooney, of course, somewhere in between.

12:06And then she said, you know, this, she said something like deep dive, that you would deep

12:10dive into the self.

12:11Yeah, that's the word Radhika had used.

12:14And she said that it's, it's so nice.

12:16I mean, that's such a lovely moment, which is constantly created.

12:22And where, you know, you're talking about yourself, you almost feel that she's in a

12:25conversation with herself.

12:27But yeah, frankly, I didn't think of it like that.

12:29I mean, that would be like, really, like, what a lonely girl.

12:32No conversation.

12:33I know, I also got that.

12:35Like I said, like, it really felt like there was a lot of inner talk of these women and

12:39you get a front row seat into that, which is very rare these days, especially with these

12:43sort of characters.

12:44Your characters are very bold.

12:45They're doing exactly what they want.

12:48Your English teacher wants to be an activist in the middle for the Muslim boy.

12:51Yeah.

12:53And these are sort of things where you normally when you see characters like this in India's

12:57books, or even in cinema, they're action oriented.

13:00You know, there's not a lot of inner dialogue, whereas in this book, it's almost all inner

13:04dialogue.

13:06So that was that was very interesting to read.

13:08And you unpacked it quite beautifully.

13:10Was it difficult?

13:12These are some very hard feelings you're writing about the envy, the even the abuse with the

13:17mother-in-law, the affairs, how to feel.

13:20These are difficult things that you're writing about and difficult not just to articulate,

13:25but difficult even to put out there.

13:27So how was that for you when you were writing this?

13:30You know, I think what helped was it was really quiet when I was writing it.

13:34There was no sound around.

13:36Is this because you were in Goa?

13:37Yeah, because I was in this small village.

13:39And it was, you know, like entire I wrote it in nine, ten months, I think April to December

13:44was the time because I had to finish a PhD after that.

13:47I was like, oh, my God, I have to write this.

13:51While you were writing your PhD.

13:53I was like, I have to write this.

13:54There's a deadline because so then I was writing them, this book.

13:59And because there was a lot of silence around, I think that helped in the unpacking because

14:03you're only hearing your voice.

14:07And the other thing that I think helped was that I would write one every day, one chapter

14:13every day.

14:13One chapter every day.

14:15It's exactly the way it is.

14:16It's gone through several doubts, but it starts with weather, the season, you know, spring.

14:22Because, you know, in pandemic, what was spring and what was, it was like, it was very strange.

14:28So it starts with spring.

14:29And that's how then I moved to the next section, next season, next city.

14:34And it goes on for 10 years.

14:36To separate 10 years is not easy.

14:37So you have to grow also.

14:39That is what I was wondering, like, it's not at all easy to separate and you go seamlessly

14:43back and forth quite often in the book as well.

14:47I have to ask you, what were your inspirations in writing this book?

14:50You said Sally Rooney.

14:51But you also said there were a lot of people you were compared to that you hadn't read.

14:55Who are the authors that you like reading?

14:57Oh, I like so many authors.

15:00No, Sally Rooney was not my inspiration.

15:02I must qualify that I read it.

15:04I think after I finished the first draft or something like that.

15:07And then of course, everybody compared and all of that.

15:10But I think my greatest inspiration would be Virginia Woolf, Orhan Pamuk, who I love.

15:16I see a lot of Orhan Pamuk.

15:18Who I just love.

15:19There is Rachel Cusk, I would say was a very big inspiration, you know, because I read

15:24that novel when she's a professor and she goes to Crete.

15:27I think it's Outline.

15:28Yes.

15:29Because I read a lot of second place, Outline, all of them I really like.

15:32And that's when I thought, oh, my God, see, she's a professor, she's going to Greece,

15:36and she's going on a residency and she's meeting people.

15:39Why must we not?

15:42We have a story like that.

15:43And I felt like I wanted to read something like that.

15:46And that's why I started.

15:47With an Indian woman, finally.

15:49And you know, which is, so in a way, it's very sort of dysfunctional.

15:52So you want to write what you want to read, which is not out there.

15:56That's fair enough.

15:57I mean, I feel like that is just the best way to write, right?

15:59Like you write something that you want to read.

16:01Well, I tried, you know, I was initially writing a detective novel.

16:06So what happened was, I had written a detective novel, and it was in the first draft.

16:12But with the pandemic, April 2020, I just said that I can't go back and do a draft of this.

16:18It's not me.

16:18I have changed, the world has changed, something new has to be started.

16:22And that's when I thought that who are the people I like?

16:24And I thought Pamuk, Rachel Kask, Deborah Levy is somebody I just love.

16:30And Virginia Woolf, of course, forever favorite.

16:33I can see the Urang Pamuk.

16:34I think Pamuk, I'm a big fan of Pamuk.

16:37No, because I can see what you mean.

16:39Because there is obviously Pamuk is also very interior.

16:42A lot of it is thought, a lot of it is details.

16:44Seasons are extremely important to him.

16:47I remember reading some book of him and he was describing the window for like three pages.

16:52Snow, I think it's snow.

16:55And so yeah, I can see that.

16:57I thought that you reminded me of Anita Desai.

16:59I think I said yes.

17:00Yeah, you just said Anita Desai, I love, of course, you know,

17:03and I've taught Anita Desai, Clear Light of Day.

17:05Yes.

17:06And maybe it was subconscious because I really enjoyed teaching and I enjoyed writing Anita

17:11Desai.

17:12She was not there.

17:13The book was not there with me at that point of time, I remember in my bookshelf.

17:17Because that bookshelf is in my locker at the university.

17:22You have a bookshelf in your locker?

17:23Yeah, there's a locker where there are books which you read.

17:25So it was there.

17:27So, okay.

17:28I think the bookshelf in your locker, that's quite cool.

17:31Yeah, the locker is a bookshelf, actually.

17:33It's a locker you pick up and there are all these texts which we teach.

17:36Like, you know, Dubliners is there.

17:38I don't know why Dubliners is there.

17:39It makes sense, there's a whole bunch of, I mean,

17:42Desai is there, Waiting for Bodo is there.

17:44At least they moved on from sort of Jane Austen, which is a paper teaching when we were in

17:48university.

17:49Yeah, we do teach Jane Austen.

17:51But I do like George Eliot, another person I really liked, Middlemarch.

17:56Yeah.

17:56And in fact, subconsciously, Middlemarch was something which is an inspiration because it

18:00had that suffrage, you know, what we were talking about earlier, that woman, new jobs,

18:07new kind of identity.

18:09Definitely, and also Middlemarch doesn't directly obviously talk about it, but it's a lot about

18:15class.

18:15Almost every book novel from that part is about class because it was so unequal back then.

18:22Absolutely.

18:23Perhaps that's why in India right now with this emerging inequality, you also felt the

18:27need to write about it.

18:29Of course, like a suitable boy.

18:33Yes.

18:33Vikram said, I love Arundhati Roy and so many Indian writers.

18:40It's so difficult.

18:41What do you think of the Indian writing scene now though, like as contemporary novels are

18:45coming out?

18:46You know, Arundhati Roy, it's been a while.

18:48I mean, she hasn't written a book since the Museum of

18:51Ministry of Athens, at most Athens.

18:55And I wouldn't I mean, yes, she's contemporary.

18:57But what I mean is in the last 10-15 years, our age, you know, what do you think?

19:02What are your thoughts on them?

19:03Who are your favorites?

19:04Who would you like to read more of?

19:06So many, Jhumpa Lahiri, I love.

19:08I forgot to mention her, actually.

19:10But so many writers, I read a lot of fiction all the time.

19:16Who is the, I like Anuradha Roy, for example, and as I said, I like Vikram Seth, I like

19:26Salman Rushdie, I like Arundhati Roy.

19:28I also like Nilanjana Roy's Wildlings because it's about the story of a cat.

19:33And I, we have cats.

19:34So it's something that I really I thought that wow, to get into this, you know, that

19:39space.

19:40It's something wonderful.

19:41And I also, of course, Amitabh Ghosh, Shadow Lines, everybody likes, who doesn't like?

19:46Just let me, sorry.

19:47With the women, who do you think is your favorite?

19:50My favorite, it's tough to say one favorite.

19:55That's fair.

19:56There's so many.

19:56Yeah, there's so many.

19:57Yeah, well, Avni Doshi I write as well.

20:00Now I remember.

20:00Avni Doshi, yeah, I like her work.

20:03Avni Doshi, I haven't read Preeti Taneja, which I want to read.

20:06She did a retelling of Lear.

20:08So that's something which I want to read.

20:11And yeah.

20:14I mean, Rupina, now let's discuss, you said you wrote this in 10 months, which I'm sure

20:19you know as a breakneck speed for a novel.

20:22Some of us have taken seven, seven years.

20:25So what is your advice for other novelists, the inspiring ones, even I'm sure some of

20:29your students, right?

20:31Yeah, I'm sure they've come and asked you already.

20:33Now, what sort of advice do you give them?

20:36So, you know, this one was 10 months, but that was a very specific 10 months of 2020,

20:41where literally the world shut down, you know, so you could only escape, I could only escape.

20:48I think such a cliche thing to say right every day, it really works.

20:53It does work.

20:54So sorry, but it really works.

20:56I think finding that one space or time when you can, not space, essentially time, like

21:02either, you know, in the morning or one time where you're sort of away from responsibilities,

21:07domesticity, and you can just sort of fly.

21:09I think that would be something that I would advise like, you know, one page 500 words,

21:15400 words doesn't matter.

21:16I have done that also forever.

21:19And while this one took 10 months, before that, I've taken three years for the detective

21:24novel also, and I see another year.

21:27So it differs from story to story.

21:29So it sounds almost like you're saying don't compare.

21:32Yeah, 2020, I think that year, that time was something else.

21:36I know that I also can't, I don't have that speed, actually.

21:41So, no, this is lovely.

21:43And this is a great conversation.

21:45You were telling me that your book launch is coming up.

21:47Yeah, that's, you know, book is already out there.

21:50But it's an in conversation, which we are doing and a formal sort of launch kind of

21:54a thing we are doing in Habitat, which is on 1st of August.

21:57And it's a conversation which will have a dramatized reading by Rahul.

22:01Rahul Ram, who's also a musician.

22:03Yes.

22:03And, and then in conversation with Pragya Tiwari.

22:06And it's very exciting.

22:08You must be excited with the debut novel, everything coming out busy.

22:11Yeah, no, I think I'm most excited when people read it.

22:15That is, because actually, it's very quiet.

22:17There's this emptiness.

22:18Once your book is out, you're no longer with the.

22:22So while I wrote in 10 months, I also did several drafts.

22:26And that's another cliché, sorry, for every aspiring writer that you have to give it time,

22:32like first draft, give it time, sit for, let it sit for two months or whatever,

22:36and then do another draft and then give it time, do another draft.

22:39So I did several drafts.

22:41Yeah, I did several drafts.

22:42After that first stage of writing.

22:43So that cliché of the first draft is your throwaway drafts?

22:46Yeah, yeah.

22:47So I didn't throw, but I did throw away several things.

22:50I added also several things, I must say.

22:52Ah, okay.

22:54And now what's your next plan?

22:56What's next for Ruplina?

22:58So the next is I want to obviously go back to writing because that's the nicest time.

23:02Yeah, not university teaching?

23:05Yeah, teaching is nice.

23:06It's high energy.

23:08But yeah, I always wanted to like, write.

23:12It's also teaching takes away, like, you know, like journalism must be the same for you,

23:16takes away so much of your time and energy and there's nothing left.

23:20So we have to really protect that one hour.

23:23And so nowadays, I write anywhere.

23:25I write in my staff room, I write in the car, I write wherever I can.

23:28You keep a notebook on you, basically.

23:30Yeah.

23:31Oh, your laptop is with you.

23:33Wow.

23:34Yeah.

23:35Because then that's the other cliche that we can say, write anywhere.

23:38Yeah.

23:39Yeah, okay.

23:40But did you feel like you really needed to like, maybe engage the senses and so on?

23:44It does, your book engages the senses.

23:46You write with all six.

23:47Yeah.

23:49Yeah, I think I really, I think.

23:51Or does the maybe the food thing come from being Bengali?

23:53Because you know, it's a cliche.

23:54I think being Bengali, but I think most important was that in during the pandemic,

23:59we were not going to restaurants or pubs.

24:01I think that drove me, you know, because if you see right at the beginning, there's a pub.

24:05Yeah, exactly.

24:06So that was something that, you know, just the interaction and the busyness and music and sound.

24:12So you kind of created your own little party, basically.

24:14Yeah, you can say that.

24:17And it is like that.

24:18It's nice to read.

24:19It's a lovely book.

24:20And it's an amazing debut.

24:22Very affecting voice you have.

24:24It was really lovely talking to you.

24:25And I hope to see you in during your launch.

24:27And I hope to read much more of you.

24:29Yeah, thank you so much.

24:30And it was lovely talking to you.

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