I always like to know, while listening to stories about dead people, how they died.
In case you want to know my story, I would say, it was the best way to die.. In between the pages of a book where flowers die to create a memory.
One June summer, I was gifted a book which everyone around was reading. It was not a suspense novel, but it did drive you to do things so that you would want to know what would happen next.
Out of the 21 chapters that talked about a family living in a village in the middle himalayas of Himachal, 7 chapters were a regular read. On chapter 8 however, there was a clear instruction of going to the 8th floor of the building that happened to be just round the corner of the apartment complex where my cousin lived in Noida.
I went to the building and took the lift to the 8th floor. It was a crowded building housing business firms. The 8th floor was however, unusually vacant. The book instructed me to take the 2nd last room at the end of the corridor. I entered it and found it to be the size of my hostel room in Mumbai. I sat at the far edge of the room that had a window overlooking my cousinās apartment complex. I began reading chapter 8 sitting on the floor.
The chapter described a portion of the mountain village like every other chapter. This one had the description of a pond that would melt during the june summers. Eerily so, a pond resembling the one in the description appears inside the room. I get up and step over it to check if the water is real or if it is a mirage.
As soon as i step on it i get transported to the mountain village. Iām inside the pond near the edge: exactly at the point where i had stepped in the room. I step out of the pond to look around. I find the grandfather of the protagonist of the book with his 3rd wife. Other characters follow and i greet all of them. The rest of the chapter 8 is basically my rendezvous with the family.
I go back to the pond after they show me around the mountain village. It is evening as i step into the pond again. I get back to the 2nd last room at the end of the corridor of the 8th floor of the building thatās round the corner of the apartment complex where my cousin lived in Noida.
The sun has set and i come out of the building and head to my cousinās home.
I finished the remaining 13 chapters that weekend.
On monday morning, i take a stroll in the park at the apartment complex where i bump into the grandmother of my favorite toddler in the park. She tells me about disappearing people in the 8th floor of the building that is round the corner of the apartment complex. She had heard stories. I assure her that it is a harmless venture. One just has to read the novel about the family living in a village in the middle himalayas of Himachal. The 8th chapter is to be read on the 8th floor of the building. Therein, you live the chapter so that you donāt have to read it. You finish the rest of the book when you are back from the building.
I tell her that i have done so. She stares at me and walks away without saying a word.
