6 Quotes by Manish Gaekwad

A library without the distraction of a few handsome men and women is a library to avoid. If there is no respite from reading, to vacuously rest one’s tired eyes on them – what else is a library for, then?

If beauty is easily exhausted, it is because the ugly never give up.

A writer may never write if he cannot finish reading. A day of unusual curiousness, as I watch a woman labour over her notebook at a coffee shop across the sea. Because I am not writing, I am not to be taken aback if I accidentally discover that what she is writing is what I have been struggling to say. It is precisely through this kind of shuffle that we have had our stories told.

In Bombay, it’s a class issue to get this far with a carpenter, but some of my friends have kinks – secretly inviting daily wage labourers home for a sex fantasy to be fulfilled. Autorickshaw drivers get lucky all the time, and sometimes even manage to steal valuables and never get reported.

At this juncture you must be wondering why this chapter reads like a clipped diary entry or even a concise narration of an unremarkable event. You should know that the harsh terrain rewards a short account where dialogue is kept to the minimum because words can hang mid-air.

A library without the distraction of a few handsome men and women is a library to avoid. If there is no respite from reading, to vacuously rest one’s tired eyes on them — what else is a library for, then? I visit libraries for distractions, way past the history section, and into the poetry corner, where the gentle souls gather.