““ये शाम कुछ अलग थी, इसमें एक जवान हो चुके बच्चे के टूटे सपनों का दर्द था। वो वापस से वही गया, जहाँ जवाब मिलने की उम्मीद बाकी थी…””
Inside the moment: Bhavita & Hardik
POCKET DIARY BOOK CLUB
MINUTES OF THE MEETING
YEAR 2024
08/06/2024 03:00 PM
Edition No. : 36
Venue: Akshat Drama Group Studio
Facilitators: Priya & Mitesh
Written by: Priya
Tu bata, teri kahani kya hai?
Ye shaam kuch alag thi, isme ek jawan ho chuke bachhe ke toote sapno ka dard tha
Vo vapas se vahi gaya, jaha jawab milne ki umeed baki thi
First letter is E. Then Abhiraj sang a song.
Sameer’s turn: Khuda, God, Dua…? ‘Is he spiritual? What is he trying to say?’ I thought (we
were all thinking the same I think).
Then he kept a hand on his chest and the first guess, ‘Dil’, someone said. No surprises
because the heart is there, we all know it from Kuch Kuch Hota Hai,
He shook his head in negative. Then someone took an even better guess, ‘Heart Pain’.
I combined both, Dil + Heart Pain = ? I said my guess. You don’t want to know his reaction.
Nija’s turn: First word is ‘Baatein’, Disha guessed it correctly. She leaned forward happily as
Nija made a peace sign, second word. 5 letters ka second word.
Gaya, lekin English me gaya…! This girl was new.
Rajarshi: made an oval shape, it was a lake. What’s in the middle of the lake? A book club is
like an island.
Next player: She pointed to her watch. ‘Samay’. ‘Time, Time!’ ‘Waqt’ ‘Amitabh Bachhchan’
‘Back to the future’ It’s also a movie and a book. Samir, team member, was finally allowed to
help. He showed his fingers and asked all to count.
We are getting all the difficult ones, commented the person who was easily guessing the
book names.
Next: Teacher, professor, phd! 2 words, keep guessing, the person acting signed.
Drishta’s turn: 5 words, English, 5th word: shoes, boots, knee, socks, boots, something like
boots yes. 4th word: pointing to the colour of the gaddi, yellow.
Prince: The – book, bookwarm? Why is he pointing towards the bookshelf?
Bhavita: 4 words, English, 1st word, no, last word, shoe, keep guessing, gun, pistol, cycle
chalani hai? killing? Nahi samajh aa raha.
Assassin, Talwar, War is the 4th word. Rahul guessed the name, correctly.
Hardik: alias Ranbir Kapoor1, had a nice time making the team guess all the wrong answers.
1 In the skit
Lollipop? Lol…2
5 words – second word is – room… ab khud hi samajh jao na… The person who had been to
Mussoorie this year to meet a certain Bond couldn’t guess it!
Rajarshi: came back with 2 words, in Hindi, first word is 5 letters, Abhiraj said: 52! Ye aadmi
hindi me chalaak hai! matlab guessing me!!
It was our game night. Conclusion of this puzzle: In Dumb Charades, Team 2 is good at
guessing, bad at acting.
…
Now let’s begin the readings.
Samir began with Italo Calvino. ‘He passed away in 1985. The unique way he writes, he
writes in first person, he writes in third person, he makes the reader the first person also,
every chapter has a preface in this novel. I will be reading from the preface of the first
chapter.’
“… Best to close the door… and really I don’t want to be disturbed …”
– If on a winter’s night a Traveller
“… I am reading… I am beginning to read Italo Calvino’s new novel! …”
Are these lines from the book or is this from Samir’s thoughts?
‘It’s a funny situation. You are reading but someone is giving you instructions,’ commented
Sambhav after Calvino.
…
बहुत दू र कितनी दू र होता है?
“… प्रिया: प्रितनी द ू र?
प्रनजा: बहुत द ू र।
प्रिया: नदी िे उस पार ति।
प्रनजा: नहीीं। और द ू र जहााँ ये हवाई जहाज़ जाता है।
प्रिया: िहााँ जाता है हवाई जहाज़?
प्रनजा: बहुत ही द ू र।
प्रिया: तेरे िो पता है बहुत द ू र प्रितना द ू र होता है?
प्रनजा: प्रितना?
प्रिया: अबे जहाज़ तो चााँद पर भी जाते है।
2 Not the chota style language lol… proper English word beginning with Lol____
प्रनजा: ये वाला थोड़ी जाता होगा।
प्रिया: क्या पता? …”
‘Not necessarily about the places that he travels to, so basically it is not a traveler, but during
the travel, jo man me aata hai, vo likhte rehte hai, vo travel unke liye vo tha ki he wants to go
back to writing, he wants to explore his inner world, so that is what he keeps on writing,
whatever comes to his mind,’ said Nija. She is talking about the author, Manav Kaul.
Certain books need a certain environment to be absorbed, like alone3 on an airplane. This
book falls in that certain books wala category.
…
“… Maybe you all live life at too high a pitch …”, read Gourav. “… Those of us who absorb
emotional things all day, and as a consequence we can never feel merely content, we have
to be unhappy or statically head over the heels happy and those states are difficult to
achieve within a stable …” from High Fidelity
…
“… Let nobody fool you, most couples are conjoined on earth. The mismatches, now they are
a different story. They are made in heaven …”, Cuckold was written in 1997 (late 20th
century)
Maharaja Kumar’s character is based on Thakur Bhojraj. Name not used – Mirabai.
‘Maharaj Kumar seeks his own wife’s love, but after marriage, he tries to consummate the
marriage forcefully but without the emotional connect, it becomes difficult to sustain a
relationship,’ she described the theme of the passages she would read.
Drishta is researching on subjects involving women seen more as a human, from a male’s
pen, in the previous century.
‘A female could also have a stand on whether to consummate the marriage or not,’ said
Drishta discussing progressive authors like Nagar & Tagore and the previous century.
…
Abhiraj brought in a ‘nation building me bhi kitna bada hath hai, that nobody preaches
about,’ he says in a very normal, non-taunting but dehydrated tone.
The TATAs: How a family built a business and a nation, discussing the contribution of TATA
to India’s growth: some examples include Provident Fund, Indian Institute of Sciences
Banglore dream of Jamshed Ji Tata.
“… Here was an old man in his 60s talking with a confidence that was impressive. He was
tempted to refuse but the determination and zeal in Jamsetji’s eyes kept him from saying no.
Finally, he agreed, much to Jamsetji’s relief …”
3 Without travelling buddy, not alone without passengers. Now, is there a good series with this scene?
It is true, in the debate of capitalism vs socialism, the zeal in the eyes of an entrepreneur
inspires to solve problems.
Rohan says about Ben, ‘He is imitating a steel boat. He is also eating an apple. He looks at
Tom. He stops to make fun of him.’ “… Say—I’m going in a-swimming, I am. Don’t you wish
you could? But of course you’d druther WORK—wouldn’t you? Course you would!”
Tom contemplated the boy a bit, and said:
“What do you call work?” …”
Tough question.
For context: Tom is whitewashing a fence.
Yatvi began, ‘Kabhi kabhi lagta hain a ki hum bahut pyaar me hai… & then’ –
yaha koi to hasa – ‘we realise ki’ – ab vo khud hasne lagi
But the passages, what contrast in the value of art to live larger!
“… “Dorian, Dorian,” she cried, “before I knew you, acting was the one reality of my life. It was
only in the theatre that I lived. I thought that it was all true. I was Rosalind one night and Portia
the other. The joy of Beatrice was my joy, and the sorrows of Cordelia were mine also. I believed
in everything. The common people who acted with me seemed to me to be godlike. The painted
scenes were my world. I knew nothing but shadows, and I thought them real. You came —oh,
my beautiful love!—and you freed my so ul from prison. You taught me what reality really is.
To-night, for the first time in my life, I saw through the hollowness, the sham, the silliness of
the empty pageant in which I had always played. To -night, for the first time, I became
conscious that the Romeo was hideous, and old, and painted, that the moonlight in the orchard
was false, that the scenery was vulgar, and that the words I had to speak were unreal, were
not my words, were not what I wanted to say. You had brought me something higher,
something of which all art is but a reflection. You had made me understand what love really
is. My love! My love! Prince Charming! Prince of life! I have grown sick of shadows. You are
more to me than all art can ever be …”
“… Then he leaped up and went to the door. “Yes,” he cried, “you have killed my love. You used
to stir my imagination. Now you don’t even stir my curiosity. You simply produce no effect . I
loved you because you were marvellous, because you had genius and intellect, because you
realized the dreams of great poets and gave shape and substance to the shadows of art. You
have thrown it all away. You are shallow and stupid. My God! how mad I was to love you!
What a fool I have been! …”
Aastha wanted to perform and had prepared on Rumi but, ‘I forgot the book!’ but we have
Rumi4 in the library.
“… The one who brings wine pours again, no need to ask …”
4 https://rumidays.blogspot.com/2010_06_06_archive.html
For Paulo Coelho, Rabindranath Tagore has been a major influence. The author, in fact, rues
that people these days don’t pay enough attention to poetry and by quoting Tagore at the
beginning of his book, he wants readers to focus on Tagore’s work.5
Divya brought this Hippie along.
One must have a passport. It keeps the dream alive, and it can be sold when one runs out of
money, using information from The Invisible Post.
Prince brought in Rusty’s stories of boys and girls, schools and no buses plying on the route
then.
Sambhav is talking of the remains of large ancient animals. And America.
Parimal is trying to unlock a huge door so the readers can find out what the mystery in the
story is, Rajarshi reading and surprised that inside the door, it isn’t a small room but a lawn
style and sized worship room.
It’s time for tea.
List of readers and book names:
1- Samir – If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino
2- Gourav – High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
3- Nija – Bahut Dur Kitni Dur Hota Hai by Manav Kaul
2- Rohan – The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
3- Sambhav – A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
5- Drishta – Cuckold by Kiran Nagarkar
6- Rajarshi – The Hidden Hindu Book 2 by Akshat Gupta
8- Abhiraj – The TATAS: How a Family Built a Business and a Nation
9- Prince – The Land of Many Colours by Ruskin Bond
10 & 11- Bhavita & Hardik – Tamasha Script Scene Enactment with Bhavita
12- Yatvi – The picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
13- Divya – Hippie by Paulo Coelho
14- Aastha – The Essential Rumi by Coleman Barks
15- Rahul
P .S. It was just after this edition that we took this club outside limitations, we opened a pan-
India online club with the aim, of conducting editions, gathering readers, in every village,
town and city in India.
5 https://www.financialexpress.com/life/lifestyle-book-review-paulo-coelhos-hippie-1371709/