The event was graced by celebrities like tourism minister Bratya Basu, actor Abir Chatterjee, senior journalist and author Boria Majumdar,

arts personality

Sujoy Prasad, politician and theatre artist Arpita Ghosh, film director Riingo and Pinaki Ghosh, co-founder of Power Publishers.

The evening started with Pinaki Ghosh sharing his thoughts about the book and why he agreed to publish it under his prestigious brand Power Publishers Prime.

“Arindam and I were discussing about the various routines, raptures and memories associated with Calcutta in the 1980s one afternoon, when he disclosed that he was writing a book about Calcutta and its charm before millennium stroke. We immediately decided to publish it,” said Ghosh. In the context, he also mentioned about including Millennium Memories as one of the titles in an audio-book app that his brand is developing.

Arindam Basu described the book as “a personal account” that enabled him to captures vignettes of the city that he revelled in during his growing up days.

“I had gone back and forth with the book, didn’t write for a good three-month period and at one point event thought of quitting. One evening when I was walking back from my old residence in Goabagan street, I saw an old house being torn down. It had a garden where we had spent countless hours of our childhood playing. The sight brought back the fondest memories of my childhood and I felt the need to pen them down.”, added Basu as he read a passage from the book.

When asked about the era in Kolkata that he would have loved to do a time-travel to, like his character in Abby Sen actor Abir Chatterjee referred to the 60s and 70s. “My connection with Calcutta truly strengthened when I was introduced to the art and literary compositions of Bengal. We started relating and connecting to our emotions through the evolving literature of the bygone era. Calcutta is ingrained in my being and drifting from here would be tearing off from one’s roots.”

Copies of Millennium Memories by Arindam Basu, priced at Rs 260, are available at Story and online stores like flipkart, amazon, ebay and power-publishers.com.