The Book Club

– I feel sad for the world and the people I see around. Stuck in their 9 to 9 jobs throughout the week, they eat, walk, sleep, wake up thinking about their work. Sometimes, they would come back and have sex with their spouse/partner. Come weekend, and they would mechanically go out of their homes to dark rooms filled with equally miserable people and drink. They would call it having fun – weekend fun. As the weekend starts to fade away, the gloom of another work week would start to cloud their minds and on Monday, everyone would put on their uniforms with collars (which I do not understand the use of) and go to work. If you want to get a glimpse of how sad the world is, get on to a metro and watch the congregation of pathetic individuals playing colourful games on their cellphones with a certain remorse on their faces or simply staring into the void. They have been living the same life since the promise of education catapulted them to their dream career, convincing people how their detergent is better than any other or how a bunch of idiots are smart enough to invest in their mathematically fucked up financial products . And they would do it throughout their lives. Work, Sleep, Eat, Fuck, Drink, Sleep, Work, Get Promoted, Sell Detergent. If they are lucky enough, they would shift to another set of products in another company – they might even start convincing people how now another brand of detergent or set of financial products is better than any other including the one he deemed God’s gift to mankind. I mean, what the fuck is going on?

I will always remember this monologue by her which, while we smoked up in a coniferous forest on our way to Triund from McLeodganj, in the Himalayas, she delivered with unmatchable gusto and frustration. I could feel my heart pound, unsure whether it was due to the green grass or the grey talk. We spent three days. I returned to Bangalore and started selling soap and she went back to London to sell oil-based hope.

I was in my first year, when I met her in Aravali’s reading room. It was the night of Socials, a long-lived culture of celebrating freshman year by officially inviting girls from colleges of the Delhi University and having an evening of music, food, flirtations and conversations. While the idea of the event excited me, the actual even infused a cold-feet in me. So I went to the reading room just next to the lawn where the dance floor was and picked up The Economic Times.

– You seriously read The Economic Times?

I turned to my left and saw her in a white top with pastel coloured dots and a black pair of jeans. She had a black metallic wrist watch and a white hair clip.

– Yes. Who are you?
– I am not from Gargi. That’s enough information.

I stood up and went out. By the way, that was the first time I had set my eyes on those coloured pages of The Economic Times.

The next time I saw her was during the Inter-hostel cultural competition. I was packing up my synthesiser after a dismal music performance on the stage when I saw a group of girls gather at the backside of the stage, in short red-and-black checked skirts, white shirt and a tie – kinky school dress, I thought. She was there.

– Now let’s welcome Himadri.

Himadri was one of the two girls’ hostels on campus.

Almost seven years later, under the sun blinded by occasional drifts of the coniferous leaves, when I asked her what a girl from Himadri was doing in Aravali’s reading room, she answered

– Judging the fake, pretty DU girls. Also, having the delicious food as a change from the monotonous rubber-rotis.
– Whoa! Fake, pretty DU girls?
– Come on. I was seventeen. My current boss is from Lady Shri Ram.

After our trip to McLeodganj, I sent her a mail with photographs from my camera. I did not receive any reply, not even the one confirming a mail bounce. She had deactivated her Facebook, Skype and Twitter accounts. Her phone no. was not functioning.

Seven years later, after returning from a late night movie with my wife, I turned on my laptop to check mails. There was nothing new, so I switched it off and went to bed and had sex. Next morning, amongst 1134 Unread Mails notification, I somehow caught a known name. Rubbing the sleep off my eyes, I sat upright at once and checked it again. It was from her. It read

Dude,

I can bet my life’s savings that you had sex with your wife yesterday. If no, come to Gangtok to collect my savings. If yes, come to Gangtok to cheat on her. In either case, come to Gangtok.

Bye.

I laughed. At moments like these, you realise a laughter is nothing but a loud smile. That afternoon I told my wife I needed to go to Gangtok. She knew about her. I showed her the email. My wife

– She is an investment banker. I hope you return with a fortune of her life’s savings. (and winked). And dare you cheat on me. Go.

That evening I applied for a four days’ leave and booked my return tickets for Bagdogra. Gangtok is three hours by road from there. I dropped her a mail telling her about my plan. At night, I got her reply

Sir,

Come to Yumthang Valley on 4th October. I will see you there.

Now, get lost. Bye.

She had not changed a bit.

—

It was not the season to be in Yumthang. Rhododendrons were missing but the good thing was that there was no crowd. It was cold, shivering. A stream flowed through the valley, crystal clear. Himalayas all around were casting giant shadows on lives as minuscule as mine. However, I saw a girl in khaki pyjamas in some distance donning a maroon top and green scarf around her neck staring at the river. There was a flute in her hand. I approached her and she looked back, up at me.

And there they were – big doe eyes with Kajal around them and a smile to lose one’s heart to. She stood up and hugged me with impeccable art. It is very easy to know when a hug is heartfelt, and that was.

After first ten minutes of the hellos and his, I

– Where the hell have you been?
– Do you see the tree over there?
– Yes.

There was a naked tree, grey. And she ran towards it, inviting me to join her by occasionally looking back at me, smiling. I walked towards her and it took me almost five minutes. When I was about a hundred metres away, she started playing the flute, her eyes closed. I sat beside her and stared at the mountain beyond the river. She played and I stared. It was only when she held my hand that I realised the tranquil tune had faded into the visual beauty of the scene in front of me so smoothly that I didn’t even realise when one stopped and the other took over.

– This is life. This is how life should be. I got sick of the world. So, I abandoned it.
– What do you mean abandoned it?
– Do you still read books?
– Yes. As always, a lot.
– Are you a member of any Book Club?
– Yes. There is this IITD Reading Club.
– Then you would relate to what I am about to say. This world is a Book Club where people involuntarily become members. However, once you are into the club, you are supposed to read books. You can read any book you want from Salinger to Marquez to Joyce. You can discuss about them with fellow readers always aiming towards getting a better understanding of the books around you. You can even write a book if you are ambitious enough and let the other members read and discuss. However, what currently people do is play trumpet and do gymnastics. Even that is acceptable, but many people just sit around waiting to die.
– And you read books?
– Yes. I did and I do. Humans are not machines, they’re not designed to merely function mechanically, at least in the realm of consciousness our experiences are limited to. So, I left my job. I currently own a chain of Book Cafes and Bookstores in the foothills of Himalayas from Uttarakhand to Arunachal Pradesh. Have you heard of Clash of Space?
– Don’t tell me you own Clash of Space?
– Yes, I do.
– (I was shocked) You give free food to people who finish a book of their choice in one sitting?

She smiled.

– You fucking own a clutter-breaking chain and you are sitting here like a hippie, playing flute?

– So am I supposed to don those suits and attend meetings? No. I have people who are more than happy to do such things. I give away a part of my profits to charity, and the rest I spend on traveling. And in learning art. That is what the world is meant for. To be explored. Not to play Angry Bird in a Metro Train without even a smile after dismantling the Pig castle. That is what senses are made for. To stretch the creativity originating from and ending at them. Not to automatically reach out to your plastic card, burp and pay for the over-priced food and drink on weekends.

I realised how I did the exact same thing last Friday, and a sudden heaviness filled up my heart. I was contemplating on how meaningless my life has been in her definition of the same when she,

– What happened to the book you were writing about the boy who turned orphan on the eve of Indian Independence?
– He never turned orphan. His parents are yet to go out to get sweets.
– You abandoned the book?
– Yes.
– Please resume. For me.

And she held my hand and this sent a shiver down my spine. She was still capable of doing so. She,

– When you start to explore your talent, you realise how weak you are at it. And when you overcome your realisation and complete the task, nothing can match the emotion that you experience.
– You have become a sermonising woman!
– You want to know how I got the name Clash of Space?
– Yes.
– You must be aware of the series of Earthquakes that hit Nepal a couple of years back?
– Yes.
– I was near the Everest Base Camp.
– What?
– Yes. I was near the camp which was destroyed by the Avalanche that the Earthquake resulted in. I survived it, because the spine of the tent that I was in criss-crossed with each other and made a covered room large enough for one person. However, I was sharing it with a fellow survivor from Czech Republic whose right leg was lying two metres in front of us. I could see the bare bones and muscles dangling from his inner thighs but it was so cold and dark and painful for him that he was not even able to scream. He would open his eyes every twenty-thirty minutes and stare. Occasionally, he would move his mouth and it took me some time to realise that he was thirsty. There was no water and it had been one day. I was hungry, I was thirsty and I was frost-bitten. I remember holding my left blue toe and breaking it like a biscuit. We unknowingly excreted and peed there itself. The space was too small for me, him, our excreta and a leg. After almost twenty hours, I felt something pierce through my skin. I woke and saw him biting my leg. I kicked him off but to where. The space was limited. My space, his space – the spaces were the same and limited and we clashed, our spaces clashed owing to the basic instinct of survival. He was thirsty and hungry and my flesh seemed tempting to him. He made a grumbling noise and attacked me, aiming his mouth at my flesh, anywhere. By the time the rescue team arrived two days later, I had killed him with his own leg and couldn’t even cry because the tears froze. One day, I was there with a dying man. The other day, I was there with a dead man. But I survived. The chain is nothing but a metaphor for our survival in the world. I want people to realise that they are here to live and not to waste away their lives. Come here, read good books, eat good food, have quality conversations and steal a moment of being in the ideal world from the world, the society they have constructed for themselves.

I could not believe what I heard. This girl, this girl from Himadri who correctly doubted my habit of reading The Economic Times and danced in kinky school uniform, the topper of our class, a filthy rich investment banker, had left her job to climb the Everest and kill a man to save herself. I wanted to kiss her but I could not. Her eyes were wet and shiny. After some moments of staring into the air around us, inhaling the trauma and the win, I

– You play great flute. Where did you learn it from?
– A chaiwallah from here. Come I will introduce you to him.

We walked back to the road and to the series of general shops lining up the sides. We went inside one of them which was centrally heated by a furnace with a thick pipe running vertically over the roof. She introduced me as her old best friend.

– Pleasure meeting you, sire.

I was taken aback by the British salutation. She,

– Don’t be startled. That’s his way to intimidate new visitors.
– So sire. What do you do?
– I sell Soap and Cream.
– What. I also sell them. In addition to them, I sell scarves and hats and biscuits and potato chips. My business is more diversified.

I did not feel it to be his innocence because there was a witty smile on his face. A smile is nothing but a mellowed laughter.

– You taught her the flute?
– It’s a barter system. The primitive and an extremely efficient way to live in a small society. I taught her the flute, she taught me Black-Scholes Option Pricing Model. Both are equally exotic to our respective selves.

I looked at her, wide eyed and she just pouted.

After having our cups of steamy hot tea, we rose to leave. He signalled me to stay back so I asked her to go ahead and I would join her in a moment. After she was gone, he

– She is a lovely child. She has seen a lot. I hope you will keep her happy.
– No. No. I am just her friend. I am already married.
– Oh, my bad. After she separated from her husband, there is no one to keep her company. Every October, she comes here and stays in this very cottage-cum-shop for days. Rarely she would converse but mostly she would be out there under the tree, playing flute or guitar. She says she can feel her daughter sitting next to her.
– What?

I then realised how I had not enquired about her relationship and personal affairs. During the conversation, he told me that once she had come to the valley with her husband and three year old daughter. The husband had gone to buy a water bottle from one of the shops nearby (which actually was this one) and meanwhile her daughter started to climb the tree. After repeated denials, she actually gave in and allowed her to climb the tree. Suddenly a bird sang and another dived into the river, and her attention deviated. She was brought back to the current surrounding by a thump and a scream. It’s heart wrenching to know that the last voice you would hear of your child would be his or her scream. She had adopted her when she was two. The event led to the separation of the couple…

– … Since then she visits the place every year. She was so disturbed that she went to climb the Everest and came back without a toe but a heart full of self-actualisation and joy for the world.

She shouted out my name and after quick byes, I left the shop to join her. We spent the remaining days roaming around in Gangtok and Darjeeling. I tried finishing The Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man in the Gangtok outlet of Clash of Space but couldn’t earn the free food, and eventually had to pay for it. No perks for being friends with the owner, I told her. Sleep with me, she replied and you will get your free dinner. We laughed. Loud smile.

She came to drop me off at the Airport. In that last moment, the last of all, she came up to me and kissed. I held her by her waist, pulled her towards me and responded positively. I,

– You know, it could have been us, together.
– But we aren’t. That’s the truth. Also, (she smiled) it turned out to be actually good. Had we been together, I would not have climbed the Everest.
– What do you mean?
– I was on my way back from the peak.