Let me confess, this mission I am talking
about is nowhere nearly as complex as the plot of a MI movie. Even then, Ethan
Hunt has completed five missions, while I am still stuck on my first.
This happened at a home warming party
recently.
I joined the party late due to horrid traffic
and was in a really foul mood. Immediately went to the make-shift bar and
poured myself a liberal amount of alcohol. I had just downed a few sips of some
rather potent gin, when the new home owner caught me and excitedly started
showing me her home.
As we neared the end of the passage, I could
hear loud voices from the bedroom. I was in no mood to socialize with this loud
bunch and started making excuses to my friend. Drunk conversations need a
different energy level and I was not up for it.
Paying me no heed, my friend pushed the door
open.
‘Have you read Snowman?’
‘No way, you need to start horror with
Carrie’
They were discussing books! I guffawed in my
head and with a rather goofy grin entered the room with her.
Quick introductions went around and I was
just making myself comfortable at the corner of the bed - when this group
asked me my favorite book.
I was stumped. Just one?
I could talk for hours to anyone about books.
I have made friends at my library over authors. I can discuss characters,
plots, twists in the plot - hours on end. But choosing a single book as a
favorite? I had never thought of it before. Everyone was looking at me
expectantly. It must not have been more than a few seconds really, but in my
head it was at least an hour.
‘I don’t know. I can’t pick one’ was my
honest answer.
It was not the duration of time I was given
to respond. The discussion moved on to other topics. The heat was off me. And
yet, I was highly distracted. I kept running through my favorite reads.
The Bone Collector? The Pelican Brief? The
List? Shall we tell the President? Sherlock
Holmes?
Through sheesh kebab and chips with assorted
dips, I still kept at it.
Shogun? Little Women?
When I ran into my friend sometime in the
evening, told her about my dilemma and asked her for a favorite book. She is as
avid a reader as me.
‘Harry Potter’, she said
without batting an eyelid,’ or could be Lord of the Rings’,
she added cautiously a few seconds later.
She could not settle on one book either, but
she had narrowed it down to two. My mind, on the other hand, was suggesting
more books with each passing minute.
Game of Thrones? The Bridges of Madison County? The
Ten Kings? The Da Vinci Code? And how could I
forget Harry Potter? Mental whack to self.
Though the conversation ended with the party,
my mind was on a mission looking for the elusive answer. It has been more than
a month since the question and I am none the wiser.
I could tell you authors I love to read –
writing styles I enjoy reading. Maybe tell you a favorite in each genre? But
no, I can’t choose one favorite book. It is mission impossible for me.