Dear Sidin Vadukut,

Dork is the best book I have ever read in my entire life. Every time I read it I am somehow made even more aware of the futility of modern life. But also of the hope that springs eternally within us that help us to transcend this futility and the horizon of conscience and find meaning in the meaningless that abounds.

Sincerely,
Gomathy L.

Thank you Gomathy. You have captured my feelings exactly. Especially about the horizon of conscience.

Another letter:

Respected Sir,

I would like you to give me a complete refund for Dork. This is because when I was reading your book it was like reading my own life. Page after page I kept identifying with incidents. Unbelievable. After you published the diaries, did you get any communication from Robin? Was he upset about this?

What has happened to Robin? Did he finally marry Gouri? Has he become a banker? I want to know everything about him. Do you have any further diary entries?

(The rest of his letter was boring or irrelevant. And has been removed.)

Regards,

K. Acharya

I would like to thank you Acharya for your most interesting letter. I read every word. You have asked questions that many readers have been asking me for many many months.

Namely: What happened to Robin Varghese after the events of the first book?

As some of you may recall, the events of book one had been excerpted from Robin’s diaries I found under the sink in a flat in Mumbai. Unfortunately those diary entries ended abruptly.

For months afterwards, as Penguin Books India put more and more pressure on me to write another book, I was very upset. There was no way to do this without getting access to more diaries. But from where? This was a great dilemma. For a brief moment I considered writing fictional diary entries for a second book.

Yet, despite the fact that I am an Indian journalist, I decided not to make up stories.

I then spent the better part of 2010 working on two or three book ideas for Penguin. The first is a crime novel set in Sweden involving Reezvahn, a disgraced journalist, and his assistant, a mysterious yet sexy female vampire called Ashu Filander. After solving the case of a missing girl, the assistant travels to India seeking spiritual and emotional answers. This she finally finds in Kozhikode where she decides to stay back and start a small biryani restaurant.

Unfortunately Penguin and several other publishers showed no interest whatsoever in Swede, Pray, Stove.