Mumbai, May 10 (IANS) Harish Bhimani, the voiceover talent of India, has been signed on by a US-based company to narrate the audio book, 'Siddhartha', penned by German Nobel laureate Hermann Hesse.

'After an elaborate search for a perfect voice all over the world, I was chosen from among 17 others short-listed for the job,' Bhimani told IANS about being selected by the company Alpha DVD.

'The role of the voiceover artiste is to hold the audience with his narrative skills with all the drama embedded in the delivery of the speech,' added Bhimani who became a household name after lending his voice to B.R. Chopra's super hit TV series 'Mahabharata' as 'samay', or time.

The audio book will be in the English language.

Bhimani pointed out that unlike India, the audio book format was popular in the West and a wide range of such works was available.

'We often see our favourite books gathering dust. We are not able to go through it because of our busy schedule. But with an audio book, people can have an idea of the story by listening to a CD while doing their work,' Bhimani said.

Bhimani is making attempts to popularise the use of audio books in the country. He has made audio books on a few short stories by the famous Hindi writer Munshi Premchand and is engaged in negotiations with various audio companies for its release.

In Bhimani's opinion, the popularity of audio books is expected to grow to such an extent that within five years music companies will be known as 'audio publishing' companies in the country.

Right now Chennai-based Karaditales is among the few known audio publishing companies that produce works for children.