I wanted to finish this audiobook today immediately after getting off from work. I punched out at the earliest possible time, the novel playing in my ears as I stepped out of the college and into a lightly drizzling city. My mind had already begun unwinding itself as the few minutes until the end of the book passed by, an alternate tab already composing some other element of this newsletter.
I climb the steps to my flat and reach out to unlock my door even as the protagonist makes the most important decision of the novel. However, I discover a small issue.
I had left my keys hanging on the door of my cabin.
Why? Two Reasons.
No. 1: I was wearing a new kurta today, one that was without a breast pocket which usually houses my keys (my tights pants had given up trying to accommodate my keys which were growing just as much as I, more on that in a future newsletter about food habits). Out of habit, I assumed that I had put the keys in the nonexistent pocket.
No. 2: A student had come by to drop off a fresh harvest of avocados from his farm. He decided to leave his things in my cabin and as I was in a hurry to leave to finish this audiobook, I left the cabin unlocked, and with it my keys.
I hurry back to college and get the keys only to step back into the Mangalore rain and be engulfed by one of those outpours which render umbrellas useless.
I reach home drenched and unable to finish the audiobook the way I intended to. Things could certainly have been different had I chosen to not wear that kurta or not be so thoughtful as to leave my cabin door open.
In fact, a branch of quantum physics entails that there are parallel universes where those very things did occur.
This book is about those universes and choices. Kind of.
What if?
This book works on this splendid “what if”, premise: “What if between life and death, there is a midnight library, where each book is a chance to live a life where you lived differently, made a different choice.”
As a sucker for immortality tropes and life-after-death stories, such a novel spoke to me instantly. The protagonist attempts to take her life and finds herself in the midnight library, aided by her school librarian (or someone who looks like her) to read unlived lives.
Good literature savours promising “what if” questions, and this one certainly qualified.
The Choices We Make
At the end of the day, the central message of most self-help books is that bad things can be different if you try to will them to be different. I think that is a hard idea to sell to most people.
My takeaway from this self-help book disguised as a novel is that there is no point fretting about how things could have turned out when there is so much reward in cherishing the things that did turn out.
I could have certainly grumbled at my brand-new kurta and freshly-ironed pants being drenched and soiled as a result of my key-chain fiasco, pondering in a spoilt first-world-problem demeanour of how things could have turned out different.
Or
I could treasure the several moments of joy in my day before that event- a dear one receiving life-changing news, a student sharing a cherished object, another student discussing a potentially pathbreaking paper, and of course the delivery of those three green avocados that started off this whole thing.
In doing so and then incorporating the same into this newsletter, I have stayed true to the words of my tattoo “Make Good Art”.
Do read or listen to this book- it was a rare delight in these often trying times. Follow this newsletter for more musings like this.