Amitabh Bachchan did not spend more than 10 minutes reading out extracts in the original Hindi. Dr Rupert Snell spent about the same amount of time reading from his English translation. The reading done with, the autograph sessions began and guests brushed shoulders with the Big B and his family.

People craned their necks to get a glimpse of who was sitting in the first row. And as it turned out, the entire Bachchan clan was -- Jaya Bachchan in white, son Abhishek sporting a pony tail, daughter Shweta with husband in tow. The absence of the poet himself was compensated for by the presence of the rest of the family.

Everyone sat very attentively as Khushwant Singh first gave a little introductory speech on Harivansh Rai Bachchan and the book.

"There are twoobservations I made after going through the book. The first thing that struck me was Bachchan's obsession with death," Khushwant Singh said. "It was as though he almost looked forward to people dying so that he could write about them. I got an uneasy feeling reading those passages. Then there are the descriptions of love. Bachchan was constantly falling in love with young, beautiful people."

Thus having summed up what he thought of the autobiography, Singh gave Amitabh Bachchan the mike. "My father would have loved to be here. He really enjoyed the translation work and spent a lot of time with Dr Snell. He is frail but very alert. The translation is a tribute to him," Bachchan said, before reading extracts from the original book. His reading was interspersed with Dr Snell reading from the English version.

The extracts had been chosen with care. They were a reflection of Harivansh Rai Bachchan's younger days, his days in school and then university. The audience enjoyed the session, particularly the smallbit from the famous poem Madhushala.

"I took a year to come up with the first draft. Then I tinkered with it. I spent a lot of time with him before finally writing the book," explained Snell.

Between them, they read out the portion where Harivansh Rai talks about his birth, then bits about his first few days in school and then university, followed by his brief meeting with Mahatma Gandhi. Requests for parts which Singh thought indicated Harivansh Rai's obsession with death were turned down.

"We have not prepared those bits. We wanted today's reading to reflect the humorous extracts. You will have to read the book to discover what my father felt when people close to him died," Bachchan said.

Penguin's David Davidar had a big smile, Bachchan had just sold a few copies more.