Another blank HR form for some firm that wouldn't shortlist me thanks to my abysmal academic credentials in college lay staring at me; not really begging to be filled straightaway. Despite the multitude of things to be done on my things-to-do list (making one such list was on my things-to-do list; this is an infinite mirror loop), Parkinson’s law usually puts paid to the hope of doing anything substantial until last-minute panic takes over. Yet, as I scrolled down perfunctorily, a question the likes of which I had seen before when scrolling down perfunctorily, caught my eye.
“Please paste page 221 from your 300-page autobiography.”
While what I wrote in said moment of last-minute panic was some far-fetched story of changing the face of Indian sport and selling a few colas while at it, all I could really think of was the following murder of sensible literature.
They weren't exactly sofas per se. Cushions met at the corner of the room, making a cosy L-shape. The wall-sized windows above opened to hazy winter sunlight. Curled up in a quilt, next to the morning’s mutilated newspaper whose Sudoku had been finished in less time than it took to make the tea in the mug next to the aforementioned paper, I neatly took off the plastic covers, smelled the familiar scent of a paperback, and lost myself.
Remember that bit about living for your dream and a pocketful of gold? I'm yet to find that silver lining.
