Gifted Books are Time Portals of Nostalgia

When you find yourself sorting out your entire book collection, just do that. Stay focussed on the philosophy of organisation - subject wise or author wise or alphabetically? Who stacks them by colour? What are you - five? 

Do as you please but have a maniacal focus on the task at hand. You should brush the dust and the white mould that has grown over them, wipe them up with denatured alcohol and stack them up. Do what you may but do not bother opening them up. Especially, never open the books which have been gifted to you. 

Don't open the jacket or the turn the cover. Just let them lie in the corner. For, you are bound to read the messages written inside, with a date if you are lucky, in a handwriting that you will never forget.  The book will work like a time portal and will take you back to those times. 

You may have forgotten what the book was about, but you will remember holding it the first time it was handed to you. In a book store or in a cafe, at the railway station or in the college dining hall. You will find yourself engulfed in the moment that has already passed, many many years ago. But yet, you will live through it on borrowed time. You will fool the present and transpose yourself to the good old days. 

However, it is when you will read the messages that you will realise the facile nature of emotions expressed in words. You may realise that forever is actually finite, with a clear predictable end in sight. Those inscriptions which speak of undying love, best wishes and cryptic notes of unexpressed feelings will seem hollow. But the feelings were well intentioned, you may rationalise, of course. Forever is not automatic, it needs effort. It needs courage. It needs sacrifice. It needs belief. It needs trust. 

In this moment, it will become clear to you that a book always has two stories. The story that the author has written, and the story of how the book came into your possession. Those are the stories that one lives for. These stories which hold the true meaning of life, love and friendship. And those are the stories which are hard to forget.