And this time a book takes me to another of those places.. you know, to where someone in the enthralling, gripping text does something that is not only so touchingly selfless, so human in such a forgotten way, but also so similar to what you could’ve done, to what you SHOULD have willingly done when a similar event came to pass.. and you so want to be like the character in the book, that person who has nothing but ink running in his veins, and yet pulls off something that not even being the possessor of the thickest blood could ever make you consider.. Ink reminds me.. ‘Blue blood’ is often used to refer to nobility.. could it be, then, that those characters we celebrate in books, whose blood is nothing but the ink - mostly blue – used to pen their lives and loves, are the noblest among us all?

"Abhi nahin aana, sajna..
Mohe thoda marne de..
Intezaar karne de..

Abhi nahin aana, sajna.."



The lyrics take me back to a rainy afternoon at 86/1, College Street.. I remember Dibyadyuti da (Department of English), my immediate senior both in C.B.S. and Presidency, singing the song ever so beautifully.. The poignant undercurrent of the song, the deep-seated pain in the lyrics struck me at once, and I have sung the above stanza to myself countless no. of times..

These songwriters must be gods..

THAT, it appears, is the only problem with books. That one innocent little paragraph, so quaintly tucked away in an otherwise ordinary part of a random book.. that’s all it takes.. and the paragraph takes you away so, so far beyond the scope of the book, so deep into the forgotten recesses of your own heart, that you hardly remember your way back.. You begin to wonder how it is that the writer, probably living richly off his/her royalties in a picturesque part of the world, managed to delve so deep into your very soul, managed to knock your breath out with such finesse.. Well, music can sometimes be guilty too, in this respect.