Meeting Jeffrey Archer

Hallelujah! He has come. He walks in with bodyguards and the other officials, while the entire hall is clapping wildly, finally he reaches the podium looks around smiling and then requests all the photographers to stop flashing. He then begins to talk and the hall falls silent trying to catch on to his every word. I discover that besides being a master storyteller and a wonderful novelist Jeffrey Archer is a fantastic Orator. He invents jokes and wisecracks on the spot while he is narrating some hilarious incident in his life.

I have now moved to the sides of the hall, though i have to stand the place is much much closer to the stage. As he nears the end of his speech about his latest book "Paths of glory" he asks for questions and just about every hand in the hall goes up. All kinds of questions come up, but two lucky ones are most notable. The first comes from a middle ages woman who wants to know how difficult it is to be a writer, he answers that by asking how many of the people in the hall have thought of writing, all hands go up, then he asks how many have actually written anything, half the hands go down, next he asks how many have written a full length novel, and only two hands stay up, How many have got published and there are no more hands standing. Then he mentions that for every thousand published novels there is one that makes it to the best sellers list. The question is answered.

The next question comes typically from a sardar who wants to know/state that the endings of all of Jeffrey Archers novels are predictable. Archer pretends to be in awe of someone who could predict the endings because he himself couldn't predict the endings until he wrote them. When the laughter dies down he tells us how imperative it is to reach a good ending, and that he is lucky to have got good endings for all his novels. He then looks about to pick the next person with a question. I think how lucky these people are for being able to talk. Yes I am stupid but i wont be realizing that until later.

"Ok, you there ..." Jeffrey Archer says and suddenly everyone is looking at me, thats when i remember my hand is still up. Someone passes me the mike, and Jeffrey waits patiently, After introducing myself, I ask him if it is important to have been to the place that one is writing about. He says it is handy but not important before narrating his own experience. 

The mike passes on to someone else and after a few more questions the signing session begins and although Jeffrey has promised that he wont leave until he has signed every book everyone wants to push around and get to the front. I get my copy of "Kane and Abel" signed and leave the place. Like the British would say what a wonderful evening!!