A Novel Way To Be The Perfect Culture Vulture

Flying open books in library
Image used for representation only.

Let me make it clear at the outset itself that I am no culture vulture. Yet, I have found this culture thing a huge necessity in my life.

The fact is that I am a snob of sorts and I move around in circles where pretence gets priority in the survival of the fittest.

Dropping names is the norm whether it is in the form of a human shape, animal or vegetable kingdom or paper, celluloid, gastronomic as the case may be.

I have successfully overcome many difficult situations on these subjects by clever manipulations using the mobile phone. But the one thing that gives me a brain fade is books. I used to love reading and now I don’t.

Whenever the subject of books did crop up, I usually changed the topic to the weather or the complexion of the person immediately to my left.

I haven’t read a book since the turn of the Millennium, I confess. I cannot lay my finger on why this happened. It certainly wasn’t Chetan Bhagat.

Wham. It just happened one winter’s day in 1999. There I was delving into the intricacies of The Perks of Being A Wallflower by the American Stephen Chbosky and imagining I was Charlie, the protagonist.

For reasons unknown I couldn’t complete the book that day. Sadly, I never did nor did I touch another.

I cannot explain why. Even a coke-filled Sherlock Homes wouldn’t be able to solve that.

There I was – a reader one day and a non-reader the next. In the period from then to now, I only read the obituaries in the cricket bible called Wisden.

The book extends to around 1,500 pages but I did 30 pages per year regularly pertaining to deaths. What saddens me further is that there were no pangs of regret in that period. I was even proud of the fact that the scant grey matter I had wasn’t even tested by a book.

But now having reached that stage in life when the blue yonder would beckon any moment, I decided that I must do something about it.

It certainly will go with my grey hair, long beard and bulbous eyes. There were many in my circles who thought of me as a wise father figure. I decided to play that role to perfection and cover that one defect.

I have joined a book club recently which thankfully meets only once a month. You get one month to read a book and then the members dissect it thoroughly.

We just discussed Haruki Marukami’s novel Norwegian Wood. There is only an outside chance that one of my so-called friends would have read this Japanese writer. I had only read about 10 pages before I found it too heavy for comfort.

But I have ammunition from the book club members to throw at these “nose in the air” souls. I will relish this until kingdom come.

~~

Babu Kalyanpur
Latest posts by Babu Kalyanpur (see all)