'Let's go guys. Show some enthusiasm.' said Yatarth as he was waiting on his two former classmates.
Both Prateek and Rahul were gasping. Neither of them had walked this much as they both had to walk today, from CSMT to Flora Fountain square. This summer afternoon in Mumbai was killing both of them, but Yatartha, however, was quite excited. For him this was a short walk of one and a half kilometres, exploring the gothic architecture of British times, leading his way to the book store which his former English professor had told him about.
'Bhai, how far is it?' asked Prateek with a dull voice. For him, the excitement and enthusiasm were gone after a few meters of walk in this burning afternoon. Rahul had finished the remaining half of the water bottle. He didn't have the energy to even talk.
'GPS says it's a minute away.' Yatartha, was too eager to reach the destination than considering the state of his friends. No weariness was seen on his face but only utter excitement to finally reach out to the place of thousand stories. He walked ahead in the direction of the GPS.
Rahul and Prateek both gave helpless looks to each other and drooped for the last one-minute walk, to the place neither of them was interested to visit.
'Finally. This is it.'
'Kitaab-Khana!' exclaimed Yatarth with utter satisfaction of finally reaching out to this place where dreamt to visit once he shift to Mumbai.
'This is it?' asked Rahul.
'Yeah, let's go inside.' and Yatarth was already at the door of this book store.
'Finally.' exclaimed Rahul with great relief.
Yatartha entered first in the bookstore and was so amazed to see the place at first glance.
'Welcome Sir.' said the doorman.
Yatartha exchanged a smile and was about to walk straight to the bookshelves.
'Sir, would you please make the entry of your name into the register?' requested the doorman.
Yatartha noted down his name and number and quickly turned to the bookshelves, followed by Prateek and Rahul.
'This is what heaven looks like, Rahul.' uttered Yatarth, totally getting consumed by the place filled with thousands of books. Millions of characters, and thousands of different worlds, and Yatarth wanted to experience all of them in his lifetime, yet he knew that even a lifetime is not enough to experience them all. "So many books, so little time." he recollected Frank Zappa's quote.
'Now what?' asked Rahul.
'Now we explore different worlds.' answered Yatartha.
'You mean, you would explore the different worlds.' said Prateek.
Yatartha only smiled and started to look at the category of the books. The wooden shelves and the colourful books had mesmerized Yatarth completely. While Rahul was so happy to see some stools near bookshelves, which were kept for the readers. He instantly grabbed one and sat over it. Took a deep breath and rested for a while.
Yatartha was hardly fighting the urge to buy all those books when he would be able to finish them all, he didn't know nor he cared about that, all he wanted to do was to have all of those books.
'Someday.' He whispered. The dream of having his own book collection, a whole floor with bookshelves and the best books from all over the world. That was his dream, having his own personal library. But the limitation of lack of money had still not brought his dream to fruition. "One book at a time." he said to himself.
Then he looked around how people were busy looking at books and discussing them with their friends, some would even sit near the bookshelf and start reading their favourite books. Some elderly people would be discussing historic or cultural books.
People from all age groups, with different categories of books, exploring different authors and different worlds and yet they all looked just like him, and yet all this was happening at one place, this beautiful book store in South Bombay.
Looking at all those people Yatarth finally felt like he found some people like him. His own kind. And that made him truly happy. A smile stretched his cheeks with this happy thought.
As he was glancing around, his eyes stopped at Prateek. He was noticing some books. Yatartha walked at him and noticed the label on the bookshelf.
'Manga!' uttered Yatartha. Manga is graphical novels or books from Japan. 'Do you like Manga?' he asked Prateek.
'Just exploring.' he answered calmly. 'Have you found anything interesting yet?'
Yatartha exhaled, 'Well, honestly, I haven't seen anything yet. I am just too overwhelmed to see so many books. 'I just wish I was rich enough to buy all these books.'
'Books are expensive commodities.' said Prateek.
Seeing us discussing something even Rahul had stood up from that small stool and had joined us. He was shooting a video of that book store over his mobile phone. He showed them that video.
'Nice!' exclaimed Yatartha. 'Send this one on what's app.'
'Are you not on Snapchat?' asked Rahul.
'No. Nor will I.' He smiled and picked out a Manga from the shelf. Tokyo-Ghoul. Yatartha had some Manga series on his mind to add toon his collection but kept quiet about it and put the copy back on the shelf.
'What the heck.' said Prateek in an amusement.
'What happened?' wondered Rahul. Yatartha looked quietly at him.
'Look at this.' said Prateek and showed the page of the book he was holding.
'You're reading in the wrong direct????' He and both of them were very confused. Yatartha thought this might be some author's trick or a joke.
Prateek tiled the book and opened it in a reverse way and yet he didn't seem to find the right direction to read that book. Feeling annoyed he put the book back on the shelf. 'Stupid book.'
Yatartha felt so amused and he pressed his lips to suppress his laugh.
'What kind of authors write these books?' he said.
'Ask him, he'd know it better.' hinted Rahul.
Yatartha answered instantly, 'Weird ones.'
'Aren't all the authors are bit weird?' asked Prateek.
'Some just take pleasure in inflicting suffering onto readers.' answered Yatarth quietly. Rahul wasn't even interested in such talks, he didn't care about reading books. His attention was already diverted to some other alluring things: Girls.
'Didn't think that this place could turn this beautiful.' said Rahul stealing a peek at random girls at a book store whose attention was all on books.
'I already have a tiny fluffy bear in my life.' answered Prateek. He didn't care to check out other girls. Yatartha found it curious, how there was a time when he saw his classmate flirted with every girl until he finally got into a relationship with Sanika. He felt proud and good about it but didn't say anything.
'Rather, it should be enticing to Yatarth.' hinted Prateek, and that brought Rahul's attention too.
'Exactly. It only seems right.' added Rahul.
They were all checking out various shelves and conversing simultaneously.
'What are you idiots hinting exactly?' asked Yatarth, though he had guessed it.
'That maybe now you have finally come to the place where you'd find your type of girl. College wasn't for you, but this would definitely be.' said Rahul with a cunning smile on his face.
'The romance category books are on that side.' said Yatarth sarcastically.
'Don't be an arse, Yatartha. Didn't you ever feel the need for a company of a woman?' asked Prateek.
'All men felt that at some point in their lives.' answered Yatartha.
'I hate his such big dialogues, he can't even come out of his bookish world.' Rahul said annoyingly.
'Maybe he just wants to keep it secret from us.' Prateek nagged.
'Crime and Punishment.' Yatartha picked out a red book from the shelf.
'Love is the crime and the punishment is pain.' said Rahul.
'But that's not what this book is about.'
'So buying yourself this one?' asked Prateek.
'Well, no. I would get myself a copy of Penguin Classic.' answered Yatartha.
'What's the difference?' wondered Rahul.
'Penguin Classic is a different publisher, Vintage is different.' cleared Yatartha.
'What difference does that make, the inside text of the story would still be the same.' argued Rahul.
Yatartha chuckled. 'Nice articulation, right there Rahul. But it's still not the same for me. I want to have a collection of books, which should look identical in nature or printing.' Yatartha picked up a "War and Peace" copy of Penguin Classics from the other shelf, 'Now look at this, this fine black cover copy. Put it together with other copies of the same publication house, and you get the pattern.'
Rahul had a weird and unbelievable expression on his face. 'Seriously, dude?' he was processing that reasoning for a moment. 'You need a pattern in that too? How meticulously are you gonna look.'
'Too meticulously.' said Yatartha and smiled, feeling amused with himself. And his attention went to the coffee shop within this book store. He saw some rich people were having coffee there and talking about books, the classics, and new releases. He didn't dare to enter that area as he thought he won't be able to afford it and diverted his attention to other books.
'Damn it, there is more upstairs.' said Rahul.
'Shall we go there too?' wondered Prateek if Yatarth was still done with this or not. And looking at Yatarth how he is getting lost with books of Hemingway, Tolstoy, Faulkner, Fitzgerald and many more, they thought he doesn't want to leave this place soon, while they had started to get little bored.'
'We would go upstairs too, but let me find the book I want to buy.' said Yatarth, still sunken into books.
'And which one is that?' asked Rahul in the hope if they help him find this book, they might be able to leave soon.
'Tomb of Sand.' answered Yatartha.
'Never heard of it.' said Rahul.
'When have you heard of any book?' asked Prateek.
'Never. I was just trying to show I'm interested.'
'Dumbass.'
'Yo, Prateek. Get my picture with a book.' said Rahul. He sat on a stool near a bookshelf and pretended to read a book.
Prateek was ridiculously looking at his friend. 'Are you even reading it?'
'No. Just posing for it. Come on. Take a picture. And make sure it's good.' insisted Rahul.
'One wasn't enough, I got another.' said Prateek in annoyance.
Their photo shoot went on for a while, till then Yatarth had found 'Tomb of Sand.' a book that had recently won the Booker Prize. First Hindi novel to win the award.
'Let's go, upstairs.' Yatartha said as he came to these two.
'Found your book?' asked Rahul.
Yatartha showed the one in his hand.
'BC, that book is quite fat.' Rahul was surprised to see the size of the book. 'It would take me a lifetime to finish that one.'
'It's just 700 pages.' replied Yararth with a proud smile.
'Just?' said Rahul and shook his head in disbelief.
'Let's go upstairs.' said Prateek. He was the first one to head towards the stairs.
As they were walking to the stairs, an employee of a book store stopped Yatartha.
'I am sorry sir, but taking the books from the ground floor to upstairs isn't allowed.' said an employee.
'Oh.' Yatarth felt a bit confused. 'But then what do I do with this book? I want to buy it and another employee who had helped me to find it told me that it's the last copy. If I put it back on the bookshelf, someone else might get the hold of this copy.'
To which that employee gently laughed, 'I understand your worry, sir. But nothing to worry about. Just tell me, are you sure that you want to buy this book?'
'Yes.' answered Yatartha.
'Then please follow me, sir.' and he took Yatarth to the counter of the book store. Meanwhile, Prateek and Rahul were looking at their friend from upstairs.
'Gopal, would you please take the copy of this book and keep it under the reserved shelf? Sir would collect it once he returns from upstairs.'
'Sure, will do.' answered Gopal and then put the copy of that book on a shelf behind the bill counter.
The employee looked at Yatartha, 'Sir, you can simply ask for your copy and they would bring it to you at the time of checking out.'
He was a bit impressed with the arrangement at that book store. He just gently nodded and headed upstairs. There Rahul and Prateek were busy with their photo shoots.
'Any problem?' asked Prateek.
'Nothing. Just some rules, maybe. Nothing to worry about, let's explore this area of the store.'
And the upstairs part contained Marathi and Hindi books, some English too. A couple was also there, a boy was excitingly telling his girlfriend about the book that he was holding.
'Look at that. How excited that boy is, that reminds me of Yatartha. He's probably single because he would talk with girls about books and they wouldn't be interested in books.'
'But here you might find someone who would share the same interest like you, Yatartha.' added Rahul.
Meanwhile, Yatartha was just lost looking at that couple, how that boy was passionately talking with his girlfriend about the book, and how attentively she was listening to him. A flashback made him quiet and serious.
He didn't say much and lingered there for a while and soon check out of that book store. Memories were attacking him again, something had triggered.
'Are you okay?' asked Rahul.
'Yeah. I am fine.' answered Yatartha.
'You've got serious. If our jokes...'
'They didn't hurt me...it's something else...you don't have to worry about that, Rahul.' said Yatartha.
'But I honestly feel that you would get someone of your type in a place like this. But for that, girlfriend you would have to frequently visit this bookstore, that too without us.'
Rahul laughed heartily. 'Otherwise, his love story would be over before it begins.'
'Only if he allows himself to have one. But the question still remains would he come here again?'
Yatartha looked up at that couple once.
'Yes, I would come here again.' answered Yatartha.
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