My gold pot at the foot of the Rainbow

Well, the packed airbags, the stacked cartons, the piles of books waiting to feel the new, fresh air of the surroundings we’ll call “Home” for another two years are still, well, waiting. They are dragging it. Unnecessarily is the underlined word. I mean c’mon dude! The paintings are off the walls; my book racks, cupboards, CD shelves are all but empty; My voice echo’s back every time I shout like I do all the time and sometimes even when I cry ; My fung-shui stuff does not haunt the walls, the bed rest and the study anymore; The hundreds of thousands of photos (in photo frames and otherwise) are all gone; There isn’t a truck load of perfumes on the dresser (I am surviving on a No.19 by Chanel with shameful amounts of fragrant substance left in it) ; I can’t see the neon stars glow on the ceiling when I stare at it for long periods of times; There is not a hoard of pens lying around here and there and everywhere else; No books strewn around, No bangles thrown in like oxygen in the air (Okay, BAD metaphor )

BUT
THIS PLACE JUST DOESN’T FEEL LIKE HOME ANYMORE (even the shabby wall plaster falls in agreement).

Almost a week back we neatly lined cardboard boxes with brown paper and then white paper. We systematically piled book after book in them. We preferred going slow with it. Stopping, to smell the smell of the old hard covers or to reminisce over the coffee stains on the new, crisp paperbacks. There were some books I never could muster up the courage to finish reading, there were others which were in tatters coz of the frequent read through(s). And then there were books that Nanaji left to me. I often teased Bhai about how ALL of Nanaji’s property that he would inherit would be outrageously outnumbered by the number of books I will get (Inside I just prayed for that day to never come or to be delayed for as long as possible). Now, being the oh-so-special person that he was Nanaji deserves a special, long, detailed Introduction but maybe some other time. For now, He was my alter-ego...Err…oops! I am his alter-ego.
So, yeah, Nanaji (which is Maternal Grandfather for non-Hindi speakers) gifted me books which can probably last me an age. From old, old dreamy romances set in those pretty British towns to gory war novels…, from chick flicks (yeah!) to Paulo Coelho’s…, from them li’l pocket books full of mind boggling facts to huge series novels of veteran Indian writers that never made it. AND there were these two tea-time-snack- recipe books also :P. I can comfortably declare Nanaji read ALL the books that were written in his time and where available in the Indian Market.
Some four odd years back He almost lost his vision to a cataract operation gone bad. Reading books almost seemed like a dream. This is where “we” came into the picture. Since ever I had been a li’l slow in hitting it with Elderly people. I just did not have the patience or the sense to deal with them (not to say I dint like them). It was that summer break back then (still very vivid in my memories)…the complete house was FULL of cousins from all over. And yeah, there were the noisy aunts who had taken over Nanaji’s TV to watch saas-bahu sagas. Without News his life was incomplete, literally. So I offered to read out the News paper headlines to him. He was amazed, delighted, emotional and grateful all at once…I could see in his eyes and tell. Headlines became articles, articles became short stories, short stories became Readers’ Digests and in no time at all I was reading out complete Novels out to him. Unlike what’s normally expected I did not get bored of reading out the books I had already read to him. I did not get bored or irritated or impatient because of him…because of how he’d react to everything, every line, every pause, every movement. He cherished every word. His face animated in tandem with whatever the protagonist was going through as if they were both joined at the hip. He was someone who really valued literature, however bad it might have turned out to be.
Early this summer I lost him to a Cardiac Arrest. For a lot of time I did not cry…, I couldn’t. I was just not ready to accept the fact that he had left, so suddenly…and forever. For some 3 weeks I referred to him as in the present (Like, “Nanaji is such a gentleman” or “Oh, Nanaji looks like some hero in his old photographs.”) I am over it now…as I speak about this some tear drops have left my eyelids and have fallen on the old book in my lap, very near the yellow stains of Nanaji’s tears…he must have cried on this page. I just thank these books for bringing me so close to my alter-ego…had it not been for them I would have never made friends with him.
Narayan Murthy, The founder of Infosys, was perhaps right in saying

“Books are a measure,
Of a man’s true treasure”