An obituary

I am standing in my room alone, trying to figure out a way to arrange all my books on the bookshelves so they can be traced easily. My problem is that if i arrange the books as per author then the genres will get mixed and i want to have the non fiction books on a separate shelf. Pluto, sitting next to my bed gives yet another sigh and lies down he cannot understand why i cant play with him.
 
Since the time between my last post and now, a lot many things have happened. I have landed a job in Goa in a shipyard and now am living at home with family, but the days in Pune are and will always remain special, that city gave/taught me a lot in the three years.


Lying on my clean bed I think sometimes of the cold november evenings sitting at a roadside restaurant chatting with Marathi colleagues and sipping at masala tea, the glimpse of all the usual shops and ancient buildings as the company bus took us round the city in the 2 hour ride to the office whilst we listened to old songs on cell phones.

Prefixing Chaaaaila!!! before every sentence, and discussing the favorite marathi topic of Biharis taking over Mumbai. I even miss all the bedbugs and the fun of living, sitting, lying, resting, eating, sleeping, reading, surfing on a single cot. In summer the antics of my room mates to cool the room by washing the floor will be great anecdotes, while visualising my room mate clad only in a loose, well ventillated VIP underwear and a frown on his face searching for bedbugs at 3:00am will be intensely funny, he adamantly believed that the bedbugs were responsible for his bachelorhood, i.e. bedbugs=no sleep=low eficiency=no promotion=no raise=no proposals, that was the sexiest root cause analysis i've heard.

Then there is also to be mentioned the perpetual smile on the owner of the tea shop when i met him every tired evening, and his interest in mobile phones will always be a sweet memory. In contrast i will never forget my landlord and his fanatical belief that my late night computer usage was responsible for everything from global warming to snowfall in minnesota, least of all the electricity bill that i paid anyways.

Besides this i will always yearn for those quiet long walks, and the trips to the crossword bookstore on holidays and the thunderous chicken at the kolhapuri restaurants, so also the crowded Rajasthani mess. Yes there are many more but then this isn't exactly my autobiography.

As for the room mate, well i heard that he left the place and finally got married. God bless his soul.

 I think I will arrange all the books as per author, that way it will be easy to find the book i want.

Meeting Jeffrey Archer

Hallelujah! He has come. He walks in with bodyguards and the other officials, while the entire hall is clapping wildly, finally he reaches the podium looks around smiling and then requests all the photographers to stop flashing. He then begins to talk and the hall falls silent trying to catch on to his every word. I discover that besides being a master storyteller and a wonderful novelist Jeffrey Archer is a fantastic Orator. He invents jokes and wisecracks on the spot while he is narrating some hilarious incident in his life.

I have now moved to the sides of the hall, though i have to stand the place is much much closer to the stage. As he nears the end of his speech about his latest book "Paths of glory" he asks for questions and just about every hand in the hall goes up. All kinds of questions come up, but two lucky ones are most notable. The first comes from a middle ages woman who wants to know how difficult it is to be a writer, he answers that by asking how many of the people in the hall have thought of writing, all hands go up, then he asks how many have actually written anything, half the hands go down, next he asks how many have written a full length novel, and only two hands stay up, How many have got published and there are no more hands standing. Then he mentions that for every thousand published novels there is one that makes it to the best sellers list. The question is answered.

The next question comes typically from a sardar who wants to know/state that the endings of all of Jeffrey Archers novels are predictable. Archer pretends to be in awe of someone who could predict the endings because he himself couldn't predict the endings until he wrote them. When the laughter dies down he tells us how imperative it is to reach a good ending, and that he is lucky to have got good endings for all his novels. He then looks about to pick the next person with a question. I think how lucky these people are for being able to talk. Yes I am stupid but i wont be realizing that until later.

"Ok, you there ..." Jeffrey Archer says and suddenly everyone is looking at me, thats when i remember my hand is still up. Someone passes me the mike, and Jeffrey waits patiently, After introducing myself, I ask him if it is important to have been to the place that one is writing about. He says it is handy but not important before narrating his own experience. 

The mike passes on to someone else and after a few more questions the signing session begins and although Jeffrey has promised that he wont leave until he has signed every book everyone wants to push around and get to the front. I get my copy of "Kane and Abel" signed and leave the place. Like the British would say what a wonderful evening!!