The Man Who Asked "Have You Read?"

After noon around evening, I was in my usual cafe where I go for everything that roams around my external psyche that possibly links my internal too. I learn many things from the cafe rather than from the classroom itself. Classroom teaches me, specially, nothing. The usual course of ritualistic attendance of classroom discussions produced many a time my own contradictions to me myself. Classroom teaches me the mere theories, but fails how to implement in the realities of life.

The cafe teaches me how to read people and how i must be in order to analyse me. People come and go, and it repeats and repeats. i order coffee and taste and it goes on continually. One day i was sitting on the corner side of the cafe where I usually place myself for no reason, may be. Two men gently be-seated next to me, but not with me. i can interestingly over-here  what they say. Two of them were interesting, after all, most desirable. One guy started talking something which I could not understand because it was their continuation of some talk that accompanied them to the cafe. After a while the same guy who were talking from the beginning itself started a new subject. It seemed to me that the other poor fellow was not that close to the other guy because i felt a clear distance between them. 

"I have read the book The Winner Stands Alone, oh dude you must read it. It talks all about the Cannes Film festival. You’ll get a clear picture about everything that happens in the film industry and the life of an actor" and he goes on talking and talking. I, interestingly looked at him and at the same speed i concentrated on my coffee. Each day I learn how to taste coffee differently, the same coffee tasted differently when i tasted it differently.

"Did you read three mistakes of my life? Dude it’s amazing, really Chetan rocks." well, he knows Chetan too. He reads a lot, i thought. The poor other guy was listening helplessly and most probably hopelessly. He might have thought about escaping from the 'great reader'.

"Dude, did you read Night in a Call Canter? Well, Chetan Bhagat talks about the incident in a call canter. You know one night God call to the call canter...." Oh jeez he must have read all the books of Chetan. he must be great , really a 'someone'. i thought many things about him like that. he was never be ready to stop his flowing wisdom of knowledge on books and fictions, he kept going on. i felt he was waiting for a chance to show all his great knowledge on books and writers. is he a professor? or a literary genius? Well he is something, of course, he is.

" dude did you read.... oh damn shit, i don't remember the name of the book." thank god at least he don't remember the name of the book. i really liked that. “dude i know the name, but i don't remember the name." well that's all ? Thank god ! the other poor fella began to help him. "can you tell me the story, sometimes i can help you." good boy he likes to help him! "yaaa gotchaaaaa... its Daniel Defoe!!!! you know dude? it talks about a man who spent his thirty five years in an island, all alone. its horrible and interesting. you know? this was the only book which was sold over ...( i don't remember the exact number he used). none of the current books or the writers have dared to surpass it." oh god ! he is good, wise man( maybe) the other guy, interestingly enough, mentioned the alchemist, but the wise man corrected the statement of the poor fella. the other fella looked around and smiled at me. i don't know why he smiled.

"dude, did you read ..."he continued asking the question. after a while the other dude managed to disengage the wise man by asking the bill to the server. They left and i remained there still for more questions! no one came and asked, but the bearer boy asked me "do you need anything else sir?" I flew with the questions of the wise man outside an on the way to nowhere i thought, 'I also am a literary student and have i ever read any of the books he asked the other guy?' i think no. 

he entertained me for a while by thinking on his reading which is purposelessly vomited on the poor guy of some other interest and at the same time made me to ponder on my lack of knowledge on the books, especially while i'm being a literature student.