VijVen

The book was very happy. It now had a reader. It was now going home.

Lying on the cash counter, waiting to be packed and delivered to the purchaser, it bid goodbye to its friends on the various shelves of the bookstore. Some of them had been lying there for days, few even for months. Yet, this one was sold within a week of its arrival at the store. The other books looked at it in envy. And at the purchaser longingly. And the book observed all this proudly.

It did not have a fancy cover. It was not printed on glossy paper. It didn’t even have a catchy name. It had no pictures, few diagrams, and lots of text. Long paragraphs of boring text. It belonged to a genre that would be described as informative. A description of which it was proud outwardly. A description that made it anxious within itself.

It remembered its author. He was a simple man. It remembered the pains and sacrifices he had undertaken to create it. He tried. And he created it. And in that sense, the book considered him to be its God. But he was only human, and had his limitations. What was important was not how it judged its author, but how the world judged it, and thereby its author.

The book also remembered its publisher. And the designer who designed the cover. And the printer. The transporter. The bookshop owner. The salesman in the bookshop. It had come across so many people in its short journey. It silently thanked them all. Even while being aware that most of them didn’t even notice its existence properly. It thanked them anyway. And it thanked them sincerely.

The purchaser picked it up and headed out of the store. Reached home. Settled down. Picked it up and started reading. It suddenly realized that it was making its debut. This was the moment for which it had been created. It will now be scrutinized. And the verdict would be out pretty soon.

So, will he like it? Will he re-read it? Recommend it to his friends? Discuss it? Store it? Save the copy for his children? It was both excited and anxious to know the answers. But it will have to wait. Answers would emerge only after the reader is finished with reading it.

And so, the wait began.