I kept looking at her until she disappeared from the scene and trailed off like a little train in the hills of Darjeeling. She had come to the store searching for a book written by an Indian writer. Though I did not boast of a big place with multiple helpers and a separate section for a café and restaurant at the back, I did not lack international best-sellers, national record-holding grossers and all-time classics. The Old Man And The Sea still lay
there on one of the selves. And my categorisation of genres, into fiction, non-fiction and geography, travel, sports and politics, among others, helped visitors locate any book they wanted to find, simply by navigating through the store.
I stole glances at her and saw her rummaging through the selves, picking up books by writers she liked. And every time she picked up a new book, there was this one ritual she did not fail to perform. She would read the cover page and turn it over, and then read the blurbs at the back of the book. She did all this, perhaps, to get the feel of any given book. She also went through a few pages inside; just to glance at the appreciatory comments the book in hand had received. It was still quite early for the bookstore to be full with visitors. It was only nine in the morning. A few foreigners could be seen ambling along the alleys in Thamel—camera in one hand and a travel map in the other. Most of them were probably sleeping at the local hotels that are scattered—in large numbers—in and around the tourist hub in the Capital. Almost all of them were possibly still struggling to get out of their alcoholic slumber from last night. And it was only in the afternoon, after the alcoholic stupor ended, that the foreigners teemed into my bookstore.
