Well…Well…Well! If It Isn’t A Coincidence!

Last week, I picked up a book at the biggest bookshop I have seen in the UAE, the Kinokuniya book shop at Dubai Mall. I had felt guilty picking up a book exactly after a week of having blown 2Cs at the newly opened Borders in Sharjah City Centre. When I read the synopsis, I was intrigued by the background of the story – a publishing house. ‘Lost For Words’ by Loreiei Mathias promised to be a routine chicklit romance…yet I paid a good Dhs. 25 for it…And I must say, it was worth every fil of that quarter C. It was humourous, had human, normal characters and gave me great insight into what goes on inside publishing houses…

But what intrigued me most was that the book introduced me to a new word – ‘Moleskine’… I didn’t look up the word as there was sufficient explanation in the book as to what a Moleskine is and of course, reference to Chatwin, Hemmingway and Van Gogh… The book kept me engrossed till the last paragraph and only after I had closed it with a satiated sigh, did I let that word start nibbling at my curiosity. Funnily though, my 2000 edition of Oxford Dictionary did not have the word (though it had Molotov Cocktail) and as usual I had to turn to Google for help. Google is my Agony Aunt cum Jeeves cum Man Friday… and like all the million times in the past two years, Google didn’t fail me. There it was - 6,680,000 sites on all kinds of Moleskines and their connection to Chatwin, Hemmingway and Van Gogh… Wish I had one, I murmured to myself as I read through a good half a dozen sites.

I wallow neck deep sometimes in delusions… Like the time we visited St. Marguerite’s Beach in Dover and Sai Prasad showed us the beach where Ian Fleming used to sit and write… And I fancied myself doing the same… may be near Bhadra river or Shankhumukham Beach… Like Mungerilaal I saw my haseen sapna that like Hemmingway or Chatwin, I’ll carry a Moleskine and jot down all flashes of inspiration and recollect them like Wordsworth in moments of creative tranquility!

Then… three days back we went to Borders to pick up some gift for someone, and lo! Near the payment counter I saw a whole shelf displaying Moleskines of various sizes! I gasped in surprise! I touched them… fondled them… inspected them…wondered when I would be able to buy one. The basest of them cost a good Dhs. 45, and what with the palling gloom of recession and the noble cause of cutting down expenses, I wondered whether I should give in to such fancy… all the time marveling at the wonderful coincidence of it all…

Coincidences! When I was in my teens, my dad had once told me about what he calls the Theory of Coincidence. He told a disbelieving budding reader like me that if I come across a new word, chances are that, within 48 hours, I shall come across the word again. To prove that his theory was cockeyed I started keeping watch on all the new words I came across and was amazed to see that it was true. In fact, I hadn’t even been sure of the word ‘coincidence’ at that time and I remember coming across the word in a Barbara Cartland I was reading secretly!

Later in life, I had told this to my class of Grade 9 students and sure enough a couple of them came back to me saying that it had worked for them too…

And this afternoon, as I was surfing the channels I zeroed in on Star Movies which was about to start a Russel Crowe movie called ‘a good season’ and as I saw the first scene a sense of déjà vu blanketed me… I have seen this movie before, I told myself… Where and when I did not remember… It is about a street smart stock broker Max Skinner who inherits his uncle’s vineyard in France and it is my kind of movie…

As I watched it, it dawned on me… I had watched it last year during our flight from France to Rome. I had seen only the first half of it…and I think in French or with French subtitles interrupting my understanding of the conversations… and as I watched with wonder and delight, I got another jolt of surprise. There’s this scene where Russel Crowe goes through his uncle’s Moleskine recording his memoirs… A slim black bound Moleskine, with a black ribbon bookmark and an elastic band around it, filled with closely written italic hand…

Well…Well…Well! I said to myself… If it isn’t a coincidence…a ruddy coincidence!
Now, recession or no recession, I must buy myself one from Borders…It is something beyond coincidence….it is destiny! Sigh! And fill its pages with creative inputs…like Chatwin, Hemmingway, Van Gogh…and soon…Yours Truly!