To Treasure Forever

There are instances in our life which become memories to be cherished and treasured forever. I share with you one such instance which is a memory that I will treasure forever. I had published a poetry book titled Treasured Forever in the year 2000 in the memory of my dear father. Since this book was meant to be shared with friends, relatives, and acquaintances, I held onto the major stock. Several years later a person happened to see this book in a café and liked it so much that he wanted to own a copy of the book. He was on his relentless quest to find the book and his online search lead him to the Facebook page that I had created for Treasured Forever. He used this page to message me about the availability of the book. I explained to him that since I had the stock I could either courier it to him or he could collect it from me. So this person drove down 80 kms one way for the book and came over to our residence. While we had a cup of tea he narrated the story of his discovery of my book. He had visited a cafe in Delhi where he said he found three rare (his kind words) books which he loved reading. One of them was a science-fiction, another was a book by Ghalib, and the third was Treasured Forever. He liked it because it was different and I think he also mentioned ‘clean’. He liked this book so much that he was hunting for it in the bookstores and when he could not find it there, he started a Google search, and you know the rest. He asked for two copies of the book and when he saw that it was only for Rs.200 he was surprised. He said he would have given Rs.1000 for it. As I bade him goodbye while he walked out of our driveway, I was embraced with an immense feeling of gratification that left me smiling. I was standing on the porch stoop with a smiling soul feeling that this was the ultimate appreciation for my work. A person liking the book so much that he did not give up his quest till he found it. This incident still brings a smile on my face and is definitely something to be treasured forever.

Note - I wrote a spin-off of this book titled ‘Treasured Perspectives’ which is available on Amazon as an e-book as well as a paperback. You may grab a copy if you love reading poetry.