A book and an obsession and me

There are books and oh so many books.Some are special to everyone....not because they are classics or good books....some unread books too can be special........ The reason being they touch you somewhere ...or trigger a special memory......or just leave you perplexed......and then there are people who cite how one book changed their life.
I guess that one thing i am safe from.
But this week as i looked back at a book i had bought some four years ago at a very dark time of life.......it was bought as i buy things mostly by intuition.
I particularly recall a joke by friends on this habit...it was a tease but it was executed so well that i still smile when i think of it....We had gone shopping the three of us and R was the only one who was sure of buying something. the two of us were like if we like something. So as we shopped and went in and out of shops and i just was like in 5 minutes out saying lets go nothing here...they were like ok what do you want....what kind of dress are you looking for sequins....embroidery and all i could say is something i will like.....and they teased me endlessly yeah she shook look at it and love it....that’s how she will shop and strangely thats true thats how i shop. There’s no reason to my madness.I am amazed at how quickly in one glance my sister can judge the cut the flow and fit color and all that.I am like hooked onto something say the colour or duppatta and and i ignore everything else.
I was thinking how all i do is by default.I never can be clear about what i want...because i always am clarifying what i dont want.....probably thats my problem.

Neverthless getting back to the book.....I had read the First Impressions on it in The Hindu and thats all but one day i just saw it at the store (i too am like many book lovers with a fetish for covers) and as i just held it and flipped through i bought it.Its called “A Himalayan Love Story “ by Namita Gokhale. I will not review it or anything there’s enough such stuff if one googles.I just interpret my reaction and memories with it.....and i have a very strong one actually associated.This book somehow brought together two things i kind of get passionate about Books and Flowers.

Today as i look and think i guess the book is kinda ok.......good if you are someone who reads Indian fiction and such stuff else many people may be bored by it.
Like everyone has their crazy thing i always have a thing about finding out names of flowers...even though i did not study Botany and know no one who does....people still say come on...did you study engineering or Botany.

But before this book mine was limited to only some general flowers not poinsettias and such.The book is set in a hilly setting of Kumaon and Nainital and hence the author beautifully talks all along of flowers....and uses the Hindi names of some .This kind of made me want to find out the English names of all the flower names i knew in hindi and vice versa.
It kind of became an obsession that time.It was a time when internet was very expensive and i was jobless and yet i somehow saved some bucks from the little i had left after spending money buying such books though......i was really a bit strange...actually am.
There was a reference to magnolia flower and tree w.r.t heroine’s house throughout the book and while i seemed to have heard and known it i could not place it.....and did i spend time and effort on just finding it out heck.
I loved flowers always though i never make huge issue about it but my obsession with finding out their names kind of grew a lot after this book.I had enrolled for a part time course in Communication Engg which i never finished or rather attempted (just blew up the bucks) but i had some wonderful time in the University library looking at books on Flowers and reading Rushdie and Vikram Seth.

Then there’s the opening passage of the book.

“I have always recognized that i carry an emptiness inside me, although i did not first understand it.When i was a child i would look at other faces, at their ordinary expressions of laughter and sadness and tears, and wonder at the ease with which they juggled these masks about. All i ever felt was a constant festering sense of anger and unease. I felt trapped inside my skin and bone and circumstance, and for this reason i began at a very early age to avoid people.”

I felt it was what i could write of myself then and strangely do even now....though i do have to learnt with huge difficulty to carry at least a few masks....it leaves me uneasy and angry and so i guess i blog.