Devaiah

I house words. They’re definitely a better species.
For starters, words don’t go on leave nor do they get married.
Words don’t talk to each other.
Now then, I don’t think it would be a bad idea after all if words got married.
Words co-exist. Good words and bad words live together in perfect harmony. (“Holy F**k”, I guess this intro needs a re-work)
I have always liked it here. Being in the company of rich and famous writers comes at a price (anything between 300 to 3000 bucks).
Let me tell you a small story that unfolded here during my heydays as a bookshelf (yes, even a shelf comes with a shelf life). It was a pleasant winter evening in the month of November. Salman had just arrived on my third rack, again.
It’s a Shame I cannot recollect the exact date when this happened. But I recall very well it occurred on one of those eerie Midnights- Children were asleep, so was the watchman.
A man made his way toward me from the backdoor, to finish off Salman. (Later I heard that people christened this fight against Salman as “The Satanic Versus The Angelic”) The visitor flung himself at Salman, and tried to finish him. Old crush Arundhati, my God Of All Things, witnessed this fight from sixth row. The Ground Beneath Her Feet shook at every blow delivered by the visitor.
Meanwhile, quietly co-existing in the second rack was Oxford Dictionary (full name). Mr. Dictionary was too petrified by the goings-on to save his neighbour’s skin. Suddenly the visitor laid his eyes on Dictionary. He darted towards Oxford and finished him. Salman escaped.
I learnt a lot from this episode. People usually finish the Dictionary before they can finish Salman.
Many writers use capacious (big) and commodious (big again!!) words to hide small ideas, and bad plots. It saved many an author, and Salman.

I thought he’d never come back, but he did. This time he was clever enough to disguise himself as Shalimar the Clown.



On a bookshelf in any library (office or school)