Watched by Kiran, who flew in from New York, Ashvin’s Between Eternities: Ideas on Life and the Cosmos (Penguin), a slim book that cranks out a heady cocktail of science and mysticism, was released at the India International Centre on Sunday. “The literary space in the family is occupied by my daughter and wife. Then one day I thought, ‘Hell I’m going to write my own book’,” said Ashvin, who is currently heading a software company, Artech, in Delhi, after spending 25 years in the corporate world.

Kiran, svelte in a black, asymmetrical dress, became nostalgic: “I have seen my father write everyday in our Delhi home and I remember discussing with him my first novel Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard.” But she never read her father’s manuscript. “Though we have a lot of similarities, like our love for travel and Sufi music, I don’t really like non-fiction,” she laughed. She was happy to let Ashvin enjoy the limelight and refused to talk much about her new novel. “ My next novel... well, I don’t know, I’m working on something. But right now I’m writing a story for an anthology on AIDS in India.”

Kiran may still be mulling over her novel, but Ashvin has already written his next two books: Tale of Two Truths that engages a parrot and a monkey in an intense dialogue, and another on world affairs, with Marx and Mother Teresa occupying centre stage.