Waiting at an overpriced beverages counter in Bombay airport , I heard my friend S’s voice. “I knew I would run into you at an airport some time!”. Our extra delight at a routine coincidence may be related to the fact that we both see the world through something-coloured glasses through which coincidences look like movie scenes.
May our glamorous tribe increase. Almost right away, S began telling me with voluble excitement about a book he was reading. I also got excited hearing about it.
Our “accha?s” and “yes!s” rolled like peppercorns through the sludge of airport acoustics, until overcome, S thrust the book at me. “Take it”. “But you’re in the middle of it”.
“Ya, but I can’t wait for you to read it. I’ll get another”. Convinced and pleased, I took it.
ADVERTISEMENT Perhaps you share my difficulty. Like many, I’ve struggled to actually read books for some time, the mind frittered by digital life . Had I not received the book in this delighting fashion, like someone giving me half their truffle pasta, I might not have started it right away.
And even so, it may have languished half-read in my teetering to-read pile. But, by a stroke of luck, I fell sick. Unable to work, I lay in bed, wrapped in a quilt, wrapped in the cocoon of monsoon light, wrapped up in the book.
At first I read fitfully. I kept taking photos of lines I loved and sharing with friends or posting on Instagram. Then the book faltered, and my excitement with it.
But involved, .
