“Bhavita read The Journey Home by Radhanath Swami… “One quiet night while sitting under a banyan tree…””
POCKET DIARY BOOK CLUB MINUTES OF THE MEETING YEAR 2023 28/05/2023 3:00 PM Edi1on 14 It is a typical afternoon in a global warming infected world, heated day and bubbling clouds. Asad is sitting in front of my eyes, in Vajra Asana (Nirali told me afterward), and my legs were hurting seeing him sitting there in that pose. Bhavita read The Journey Home by Radhanath Swami, who started a spiritual quest and wrote of his journey. She read an excerpt from the 10th chapter. “One quiet night while we sat on his rooftop terrace engaged in a philosophical discussion, he calmly said, “Mr. Richard, please excuse me for a brief moment, I have an obligation to attend to.” Suddenly, he jumped up from his chair, cocked his head to the moon and Bhavita, like a true reader, howled like a wolf, “Aaauuuwww, aaauuuwww, aaauuuwww.” The second reader was Asad (still sitting in Vajra Asana), he read The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde. He called the protagonist, Lord Henry Wotton as amoral. Ruchi punned, ‘Aeyy-morality’. Sniggers and she repeated the joke. The discussion after Asad finished reading was very wholesome, everybody was intrigued by the edition of the book he was carrying. ‘School ki books ki yaad aa gayi’, said Priya. Nimesh reading The Secret by Rhonda Byrne brought back the never dying debate on self-help books. In the end, everyone unanimously agreed with Smit, ‘Harry Potter is the best self-help book in exams.’ Chai was ordered. Sandeep came and sat silently in the corner. Kusangi brought the legendary Agatha Christie to the club with Closed Casket by Sophie Hannah. The book was a continuation of the world-famous ‘Hercule Poirot’ series. ‘Agatha Christie ki stories bahut hi Bollywood style hoti hain,’ someone said and I remembered the few Agatha Christie books I read in my school days and said to myself, ‘Agatha Christie = Abbas-Mastan’(twists and turns, the salsa of the plot and the reader). Chai was served and now it was time for the skit. Yogesh, the skitter got his group in formations and handed us the posters for their skit, “चोर बने मोर”
With the skit came a laughter riot in the studio. Everybody lost their minds when Chirag, the archeologist said that “his life was in ruins.” The writing was brilliant, pun after pun. The energy in the room was on another level. “कोई बड़ा आदमी होगा तो अपने घर का होगा” Mitesh read NASHA from Premchand Ki Kahaaniyan. Everybody was of the opinion that it was the first time they had a good laugh listening to Premchand’s story. Smit took everyone back to 1947, to the days of Partition with In the Language of Remembering- The Inheritance of Partition by Aanchal Malhotra. The excerpt he read was from the conversations between Indian and Pakistani soldiers over the division of the ATTARI- WAGHA border. The mood in the room became very sad. To give a closure to the silence after the forgotten family anecdotes, someone said, on the topic of similarities between the two nations, ‘Lahore ki Eid me sanvarti hai Delhi aur Delhi ki Lohri me sanvarta hai Lahore.’ Yogesh Ji, after reading an excerpt from The Art of Thinking Clearly by Robert Dobelli, thinks that we should look beyond first and last impressions. Some people also argued that last impressions don’t mean anything. Ruchi says they do. ‘Last impressions are first impressions for the next meeting’.
In Praise of Shadows read by Sandeep was a compilation of essays on Japanese Architecture and food and the author’s observation on life. This led to a deep discussion of brutalism in architecture of Ahmedabad, the aesthetic and its examples1. “And indeed if Eugene Irtenev was mentally deranged everyone is similarly insane; the most mentally deranged people are certainly those who see in others indications of insanity they do not notice in themselves…”, read Nagesh from The Devil Chapter XXI, Tolstoy. The last reader for the evening, Rajesh gave us a choice, WAR or LOVE. Priya crieeed, War! And then, with full dramatics, he recited Rashmirathi by Ramdhari Singh Dinkar. During all this time, an owl-shaped flower pot was staring at me, I nodded to him and gave him my greetings before leaving to have chai and dance in the rain with everybody. • Skit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-1pYsjOu-c • Rashmirathi Dramatic Recitation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfpkFUwbNEY&pp=ygUhcG9ja2V0IGRpYXJ5IGJvb2sgY2x1YiBlZGl0aW9uIDE0 • My name is Srijan Kaushik, I am a law student.
1 https://medium.com/plusnineone/how-brutalism-took-over-indian-campuses-and-why-it-makes-sense-6b2cd0a1150f