We'll wait for our fate, 'cause nobody owns us baby

Bookstores overwhelm me all the time in a way a library doesn't. Inside the aisles of a library, I find a sense of continuum that is reassuring - the finiteness of our lives, the pittance of time we spend in reading seem to be in perfect harmony with the fact the books on the shelves would still be there, to be picked up at a later time by me, or by someone quite unlike me, who comes after.

With a bookstore however, the hustle is real. It starts with a sense of panic at the pathetic little time I have to reap the benefits of this encounter, to be able to take something tangible back from this sensory overload, before the books get into someone's shelves or are replaced by a new crop, come the next visit. The impermanence rattles me, and so my usual reaction is to shut down, stand six inches away from the shelves, and keep reading blurb after blurb, till I glance at A, and see her handing me over a book she wants me to check out, out of her already gathered stack of six. I give the back cover a thoughtful read with a perfunctory nod and make a buy or pass judgement. In fact, this is often the point at which I derive the courage to pick one out of the shelves. With probability one it is something with the seal of an award - just to be safe.

This Saturday at Champaca turned out to be a little different. Champaca is like a friend's pad now, where you know which cabinet has the wine bottle and which box has the freshly baked cake (like literally, their cafe is a delight), so I usually let my guards down. Sun had been up in Bangalore after a hiatus of a fortnight, and was setting gently through the bamboo slats that cover the panoramic western window of the bookstore. We were in for only a few minutes and waiting in line for our afternoon coffee/soda and cake ritual, when I found this girl, crawling on the floor, taking out book after book from the lowermost shelf right in the middle of the store. As soon as she was done, curiosity drove me to her place of plunder. To the left, stood a set of books, in all white covers, and to the right was an army in royal blue dust jackets. The righties were a motley bag of english translations of international works, fresh off the press. The Nocilla Trilogy by Spanish novelist Agustin Mallo which presents multiple narratives of people and places that reflect America and the world in the digital age seemed like a rare find. But the one from the left that startled me was an extended essay called The Hatred of Poetry by Ben Larner. Beyond the clickbait title, what lay was actually a love letter. Going alI the way back to Plato who advocates banishment of poets, the author opened up an appetizing platter, leaning heavily on Alan Grossman's collection of essays. I read as many pages as I could, before the book launch of Eldo would start, and A only gently hinted if I should get it, as she does nowadays.

The session was starting, and I put the book back on the shelf with a sweet desire to see it back in the same place, waiting for me. That only seemed the right thing to do.