Reading maketh the man

I don't find the book on my side of the bed. So I look at the other side of the bed and still don8217;t find it. I look for it on the smal...

I don8217;t find the book on my side of the bed. So I look at the other side of the bed and still don8217;t find it. I look for it on the small glass table behind my bed. No book. No Donna Tartt8217;s Secret History. I have been reading it for the last two days and the narrative is precariously poised.

I look for it on the small table across my bed. There is a small pile of books lying on it. But there is no book with a black cover. No Dona Tartt8230;

As far as I can recall I was reading the book just before I fell asleep. It can8217;t be too far, I tell myself. I look for it on the little shelf on the top of my cupboard where I keep my favourite books. Herriot is there. Jan Morris is there. Updike is there. Seth is there. The God of Small Things is there. But no Donna Tartt.

Now I am getting pretty agitated. An hour after my Sunday afternoon nap is the best time for reading. Could the book have sprung legs, I ask myself.

I go out of the bedroom and ask my wife whether she knows where my Secret History is? She laughs at me and says, 8220;I know your secret history but not where your Secret History is.8221; Then she advises, 8220;Look under the bed.8221; When I tell her that I have already done so, she says. 8220;Look again. May be you missed it the first time.8221; I go back to the bedroom, get down on my knees and look under the bed. Still no Secret History.

Now I charge out of the room and rush to my den. It8217;s not on my desk it8217;s not on the self across my desk. Dattaram, the peon, is cleaning my shelves. I ask him whether he has seen a black book. He asks me if it8217;s the one I was reading before I went to sleep. 8220;Yes, that is the one!8221; I exclaim hopefully, thinking that perhaps he knows where it is. 8220;I saw it in your hand before you went to sleep,8221; he says. I lose my cool and say, 8220;That is all very well but do you know where it is now?8221; He shrugs his shoulders non-committedly.

I go into the hall and start looking for it in my library. I look for it under 8216;D8217;. Durrel is there. Dean Ornish is there. But no Donna Tartt. No Secret History. No luck. I look for it under 8216;T8217;. Tom Sharpe is there. Thomas Jefferson is there. But no Donna Tartt. Still no luck. I am really angry now. Could somebody have taken the book and walked out of the house with it? Then I tell myself to be reasonable. Why would anybody do that? Who else would be interested in Secret History?

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Dattaram walks in with the book at that point. It is black and it is the Secret History. I am so relieved that I almost to hug him. I hug the Secret History instead and then raise it in the air in mock triumph. He mumbles something about it having been on the other desk in the study.

Frankly, I don8217;t care damn, now that the book has been found. I want to pick up the thread of the narrative and get lost in it.