I am not a picky reader. I usually read whatever lands on my lap. This means I read a lot of forgettable stuff that no one in her/his sane mind would ever want to get close to. Stuff that by the end of the book you would hope to forget how you started reading it.

Idling through Landmark@Forum I had picked up a few books for Ro. I have read and liked Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. So The Conch Bearer was a natural choice. Fact that the paper back print was large and was on discount made it an obvious choice.

It all started with helping Ro to read the book. It wasn’t long till I got hooked and waited impatiently for him to sleep so that I could race through the book myself. Even bribed him to carry it as my flight read. He is still reading and hates being told the story and insists on discovering it all by himself.

So his journey is still on. But mine was magical, as the book took me to my Kolkata, traversing through the cold dingy lanes to the warmth of the human heart. I became once more a twelve year old fighting to keep the innocence of believing in my heart as the world around caved in. For Anand, the protagonist, the path and the guide appeared as divine intervention. For me, neither the path nor the guide has ever come to rescue. Or maybe, I never believed enough.