I just remembered that My social skills (which is a wrong word for what I possess) are more fractured than the head of a nail. So here is a peek into a few indignities of my threateningly endangered social existence.

CASE 1:

Guy: *accidently touches my boob with his bare hands* (well, I don’t think it’s accidental)

Me: *wishes for a portal to open into a parallel universe* uhh....huh *Averts gaze like I am Scott Summers*

Guy: *sickly pallor and a death wish* uh..I....Sorry....God, I hope I instantaneously combust...but...umm...I am sincerely sorry...I’ll understand if we discontinue the friendship. *Deer 

caught in headlights*

 Me: *takes a deep breath* It’s all right.  Brain: *I want to kiss that face*

Guy + Me : *Mexican Standoff of stares ensues*

Guy: I can’t even pat/massage the part I hit.

Guy + Me : *UGLY RIOTS OF LAUGHTER*

Brain: *I wish you could though, I don’t mind massages :P *

 CASE 2:

Guy I have been stalking for a while: *waves*   Yo!  *expects reciprocal YO, ignorant fool*

Me: *Looks at him and then behind herself for another person, coast is clear? What?* Gggggg...

*sprints away faster than Barry Allen*

And never crosses path with the aforementioned guy until the end of college life.

CASE 3:

Stranger: Could you hold the door for me please? My hands are kind of full.

Me: *holds the door without replying*

God: *sends a fleet of strangers who suddenly want to go to the store*

Me: *After 30 years of holding the door for the entire population of the country* My hands hurt, How do I tell them that I need to pee?

CASE 4:

A college Senior: * waiting in the food line*

Me: *forgets to take a fork, goes back to the table and weirdly makes faces and grunts so as to get the senior to move* *faintly whispers* Excuse me ma’am.

Senior: *thinks I wished her good evening* Hey what’s up?....*smiles and does not move*

Me: *NOOOOOO*  Nevermind, I’ll use the spoon for the noodles. *walks away*

CASE 5:

Communal Hostel Washroom: *Batch mates lurking in the dark corners*

Me: *groans internally* Some other life then, Goodbye acute need to pee.

CASE 6:

Me: *to the pizza guy* Thanks..

Pizza Guy: Enjoy.

Me:  Umm..you too.

Brain: WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU?

CASE 7:

I was updating my Goodreads to-be-read pile and an epiphany paid a taunting visit, I’ll never be able to read all the books that have been and will be written. My heart sank into a dreadful limbo of helplessness and anxiety, I assuaged the sudden panic attack by ordering more books and making my to-be-read pile a to-be-read fortress.

I just wish I could time travel like Tim from about time and just relive the first spark of comprehension, the sweet relief of not feeling alone because someone in those pages gets it. Snorting at someone’s joke because it reminds you of a familiar line from a book. Being emotionally invested in fictional people never ended well for anybody.

The feeling I get when I touch a crisp cover a book I have been pining over for more than a year, the smooth ridges, the dentition left on the book-rib from the journey from the store to your hand, the mind boggling smell of mint condition books. The even more mesmeric scent of second-hand books. Old books, especially, entrap you into their history. More than the story on the pages, I wonder about the previous possessor; if he was happy in his life, if he’d read this book during a sad time of his life, if it held meaning, did it make him cry, ponder, reflect or was it an insipid guest on a short stay on his nightstand. And if you’re lucky you’ll be treated by a small name and address or a short note from the previous possessor. When I find this treasure I always hope that they are fine in their lives and that they miss the book sometimes, I know I would. But then I would never give away my books, even for charity, I don’t possess a golden heart you see. No, I am not even giving away The Twilight saga.

Do you ever feel that one consequential moment of enlightenment, that one moment of clarity, that one moment of profusion of ‘sense’, in a word at the right place or a short sentence of evangelical intervention? You feel blessed, a new form of life. It’s like the author wrote the lines only for you to make sense. I love the feeling of being helplessly at the mercy of these words; completely surrendering to these blotches of ink. Sometimes I thank these words through tears or ‘poetic-debt’ as I love to call it and sometimes an endless ode in the form of a fan e-mail to the author.

These aren’t just words trying to impress me through their curves and arrangements, these are living memories of the hope to make sense of ourselves, Books aren’t a matter of ungrateful handling, they are as alive as you. They help you find lost pieces of your constitution. When I read, it feels like I am waltzing with the words to the music of the story. It is the only time I am ‘not lost.’

   I think Books are a reader’s chance of redemption. Redemption from:  society, non-conformity, loneliness, misanthropy, cynicism and self-loathe. I don’t recall a book that did not rekindle my love for life, every book has a certain uniqueness; a royal subtlety. If you’ve read a book that you like, it means it reminded you of yourself but in an altered way, you see yourself in the goodness of the character and understand your own vices through them. You hope that you will become that beautiful sentence that has been permanently etched in your memory, a reminder that you are more than what you think.

I think it is important to be alone with a book, read the irony in this line, reader. It’s important to surround yourself with people you’ll never meet, places you’ll never see, emotions you’ll never feel but in those printed pages. Trust me it is important. Let the words romance with your thoughts, let the lovers unite.

Aren’t we all stories waiting to be written in the end?

I remembered a line from The Book thief: “I am haunted by humans.” Said death.

I could feel the torrid of mind numbing emotions coursing through me when I read this line. What if we let these stories haunt us? What if we become each story? It wouldn’t be any less an adventure than Alice, would it?

P.S. I have problems reconciling with the fact that I should not read books for an entire month but I am going to disobey my disciplined conscience. It would be an absolute pleasure to receive the titles of your personal favorites.