It gets heavier as it goes on...

Mind diverts in its attention, the body tunes out, the soul goes for a walk and the thoughts come in. Mind and Matter – thoughts seem to be convalescing towards a concrete answer. An answer or maybe ‘the’ answer to ‘the’ question which will eventually be asked of any young upcoming professional either by an interviewer or by a senior executive or the discerning ‘to-be-father-in-law’.

There are different variations like “what is your objective/ambition in life?” , “what do you want to achieve?’, “where do you want to see yourself 15 years from now?” etc etc

I am yet to figure the answer to these questions and maybe they smell of monism to me. But well, materialism is something that I am not averse to, and hence it fits that I find an answer to these questions without mistaking myself to be a saint.

My current make-up of the answer is – I want to make money enough to buy myself an huge room full of books on a shelf.  My short term objective is to make enough money i.e disposable income, to be able to buy hardback books instead of buying paperbacks! Go figure that out, Mr. Recruiter/Father in law/mentor/shrink  (oops, did I spill out the beans?) ;-p

Look I started reading books  because a family friend gave a copy of Enid Blyton’s  Secret Seven. It was a hard back.  Being reasonable lower middle class in my schooling days, we considered books to be a source of expensive entertainment. Buying school books at the beginning of the year was a huge expense for which mom and dad had to save up months in advance. So the reading was limited to Enid Blyton borrowed from the school library, borrowed from a friend or found in the local old newspaper seller’s shop.  When other kids used to buy old copies of sportstar and filmfare, I was hunting for Enid Blyton – usually search was on for a hardback !

As years rolled on, borrowing continued but I had moved on to Hardy Boys, Jeffrey Archer, Mario Puzo and R K Narayanan. Still there wasn’t enough money to buy them. So I started permanently borrowing them  from some old uncle’s or aunt’s  collection.  I still have some of them. Must mention some ‘adult’ books that I ended up borrowing,  unaware of the thrills buried inside those pages – my first experience of adult literature in teenage – uufff, those were the days of innocent gratification !

Pursuing an MBA, I started buying some business/management/marketing related books that were a good read even after the studies were finished. Realizing the ‘high’ I was experiencing ‘owning’ those books, I started buying books from my first salary.  I was always against piracy and hence ended up buying proper editions. Over the last few years I have built up a decent collection of books. Each time I get promoted or get a hike in salary, my disposition towards the buying of books increased. The more I earned the more I bought. It was as if I was measuring my success in terms of the number of books that I bought. But hardbacks were still out of reach. 

Sister’s wedding, a house, a car, a bike, etc  maybe prevented me from getting those voluptuous hardbacks.  Excuses ?  Maybe.

Hence now that I have a chance to think of ‘the’ question – I realize that I want to earn more because of the necessity to buy myself hardback books.  Life seems going towards that ambition – a hardbound eventuality !