Shriram Iyer, an engineer by education, a marketing consultant by profession, a professional singer, and a renowned writer just hosted the signing and book talk event of his second novel Let Me Go at Shivani’s restaurant in Papatoetoe on Sunday, August 5.
Shriram Iyer wears several hats and is an ace in each of his ventures be it singing, writing, or his marketing profession, but his latest work has rewarded him a published second novel, a romantic drama.
The book was published in India in December 2017 five years after his first successful novel Wings of Silence in 2012 which has also been translated into the Korean language by Darun Publishers.
Mr Iyer’s latest novel delves into the subject of friendship and love and intrigues readers with a question: ‘how far can a friend go for another’.
“I wanted to explore the concept of: 'how far is a friend prepared to go for another?' At the same time, an unfortunate incident that an acquaintance of mine went through triggered the first part of the book where one friend discovers the condition of another,” Mr Iyer explains his inspiration behind the premise.
The story revolves around two protagonists who accidentally become friends and later best friends after a series of (disguised) unfortunate incidents in their childhood. At the edge of their teenagehood, the female protagonist falls in love with an older person, which eventually estranges the two only to come to a crossroad where he has to make a choice, thus, ‘how far a friend can go for another’.
The book signing and ‘technically’ launching event for Auckland was attended by Labour Party MPs Michael Wood, Priyanca Radhakrishnan and National List MP Kanwaljit Bakshi besides community members and friends as guests. The event unfolded with some works of the writer, his history of activities in India, New Zealand and Australia and Q&A session about his work and future goals.
Mr Iyer has received Shankar’s international award for creative writing from the President of India, authored a few unpublished short stories, adapted scripts for theatre and screenplays for short films. He is also an accomplished singer and songwriter with over 2.5 million views on Youtube and performed approximately 500 concerts across different countries in the past.
He is currently working on his third and fourth novels, one based on the epic The Mahabharata and the other, a take on domestic violence.