I become miserable when I am nearing the end of a book I have loved so well. I try to stretch my reading of it, so that I have more time to spend on it. However, the last page has to be read sometime, and the book has to be put to rest sometime. The story however, or the story-within-a story becomes a part of you forever.

Margaret Lea is met by a surprise when a letter arrives in her name from the country’s most celebrated author Vida Winter, who seeks her out to recount her story. As a biographer, Margaret knows that other biographers would die to get an opportunity to write Miss Winter’s story, but then the fact that she has been chosen of all the people, comes as a huge surprise. Margaret has not read a single work by Miss Winter and she does not know anything about the author except that she is an acclaimed author and that her work has been translated into as many languages as possible. Why did then, Miss Winter choose just Margaret to write her story? Perhaps it has got something to do with Miss Winter’s Thirteenth tale of “Change and Desperation”.

In the land of rain
Monsoons in the North-Eastern part of India can be extremely cumbersome with nothing but endless stretches of rainy days and nights for months and months. Moist, mouldy rooms and the ubiquitous smell of half wet clothes, are what greets you in every household in the hills during monsoons. Imagine, having to live under incessant showers of rain for most part of the year? We did. We laughed and we lived and we played under outspread umbrellas and duck-back raincoats and heavy black gumboots. Were we happy? I think we were partly oblivious to the future and partly vague about our short pasts, but then we lived in the present. The present was all that mattered to us, and what a glorious present it was! Yes we were happy! We were the happiest that anybody could be.

What do you want to become when you grow up?
We were oblivious to the future in the sense that we did not care much about tomorrow as we did about today, except for the fact that it was compulsory for all of us to know what we wanted to become when we grew up. Thus like parrots we would recite and re-recite words ingrained into our delicate brains after having the vividest of ideas of what we wanted to become when we grew up. Doctor, Lawyer, Police, Businessman, Princess, Teacher, Singer, Actor were scores of ambitions presented by eager piping voices.

It’s Friday the 13th today, again. This occurrence is observed to have cropped up thrice a year at the most. Am I convinced by the overall pall that is cast over by Friday the 13th? The answer is a simple no. First of all, my favourite day of the week is a Friday. Good things happen to me generally on Fridays. I am usually happy, energetic and positive on Fridays, like I am today. Friday dinners are special, elaborate and meticulously laid out, because my family and I see it as the beginning of a quiet weekend of repose and rejuvenation. On Fridays we watch films together, drink some nice wine and stay up as late as we possibly can! Friday is the best thing that can happen to my nine year old son Noah because he can favourably exercise his reward for a late night without having one of the parent hover at the door, monotonously droning about turning off the computer and getting ready for bed. So you see, Friday is the day that heralds the end of our hurry-some and tiresome week. However religion based proclamations hold an entirely different perspective.