I live in a hostel. Whenever I go to someone's room, I pick up books and flip through some of the pages. Sometimes it happens to be Vikram Seth's An Equal Music where I read about him talking about the song that the narrator composes in the E minor scale, or sometimes, it's Shashi Tharoor's The Great Indian Novel, where I admire his confidence at naming the title so, for what if the novel is not actually great. I find a lot of Ayn Rand's books in these rooms, while one of my hostel-mates is a fan of Edward De Bono and his personal library is stacked up with his books. I tried reading De Bono once, but gave it up too soon after finding him bragging about all the accolades he had won in the first three pages. But my friend tells me his logic is flawless and his ideas on effective thinking are very original and insightful. I nod unconsciously.

(Continued in caption. Wrote it in 2013 upon joining the YIF)

- हर्ष स्नेहांशु