'They are your journals, you read them,

'I said to him.

He shook his head.

'Listen, I don't have the time or patience for this,

'I said, getting

irritated. Being a writer on a book tour doesn't allow for much sleep—

I had not slept more than four hours a night for a week. I checked my

watch. 'It's midnight. I gave you my view. It's time for me to sleep

now.'

'I want yon to read them,

' he said.

We were in my room at the Chanakya Hotel,Patna.This morning,

he had tried to stop me on my way out.Then he had waited for me all

day; I had returned late at night to find him sitting in the hotel lobby.

'Just give me five minutes, sir,

' he had said, following me into the

lift. And now here we were in my room as he pulled out three tattered

notebooks from his backpack.

The spines of the notebooks came apart as he plonked them on the

table.The yellowing pages fanned out between us.The pages had

handwritten text, mostly illegible as the ink had smudged. Many pages

had holes, rats having snacked on them.

An aspiring writer, I thought.

'If this is a manuscript, please submit it to a publisher. However,

do not send it in this state,

'I said.

'I am not a writer.This is not a book.'

'It's not?'I said, lightly touching a crumbling page. I looked up at

him. Even seated, he was tall. Over six feet in height, he had a

sunburnt, outdoor ruggedness about him. Black hair, black eyes and a

particularly intense gaze. He wore a shirt two sizes too big for his lean

frame. He had large hands. He reassembled the notebooks, gentle with

bis fingers, almost caressing the pages.

'What are these?'I said.

'I had a friend.These are her journals,

' he said.

'Her journals. Ah. A girlfriend?'