Ritwik's, A Bookshop Bar By The Sea

During the first years of their marriage, my parents lived in the picturesque Nancowry island, part of the Andaman and Nicobar chain of islands off the eastern coast of India. Nancowry has a natural horse-shoe shaped harbour and is located in the more secluded Nicobar part of the island chain, which is why the Indian government did, at some point of time, toy with the idea of turning it into an international free port.

Thankfully, the Indian Navy, which has an important naval base in the region, shot down the idea. And another island paradise, and the local population, was saved, at least temporarily, from commercial sodomy, oops, exploitation (this is a family blog, Rajan, he chided himself).

Coming back to the days my parents spent in Nancowry, my mother tells me a story which, among the many from that part of the world, is one of my favourites.

The Nicobaris are a very friendly lot. Everytime you make eye contact with one, he is most likely going to smile back at you. My father, who spent a few years in Nicobar, says the Nicobaris would always be laughing, as if there was a private joke that was going on between them.

In Nancowry a few of the Nicobaris worked as domestic helps at the homes of government officials like my father. As domestic helps, they were very clean hygienically and very honest, recalls my mother. They would rarely quibble about the amount they would charge as salary or complain about the amount of work they had to do.

The task of procuring a job was simple and uncomplicated. The interested party would knock on your door, and ask "Naukri hai? (Do you have a job for me?)" If you said "yes", he would walk in through the door, head for the kitchen and start working.

The young man who used to be in the employ of my parents was very friendly and very hardworking, says Ma. Often his friends would come and visit him and it is the custom among Nicobaris to always see off your visitor to the door. So, my mother says, it wasn't unusual for him to disappear for a few minutes as he would bid goodbye to his friends.

However, one morning when he had gone to leave another of his friends, he didn't come back. My mother grew increasingly worried, wondering both about his well being as well as the household chores that needed to be done. Later in the day she informed my Dad, that the young Nicobari help had been gone almost the whole day. My Dad made a few enquiries about his whereabouts, but couldn't find him.

Over the next few days, there was no news of him. My parents were worried if he was alright. They were also contemplating whether they should hire a new help. Then, as suddenly as he had disappeared, he reappeared one fine morning. A familiar smiling face appeared at our door one morning and asked : "Naukri hai?"

My mother was initially anxious if he was ok, then her concern gave way to anger, when she realised he was fine and wasn't about to explain or apologize for his prolonged absence. All he said was he had gone fishing with his friends and was now back.

Usually slow to rouse to anger, my Ma was hopping mad that morning and she waded into him, all guns blazing. She told him, how worried they had been about his well being. She asked him why he hadn't informed her before leaving. She told him how unprofessional his conduct had been. It was a tongue lashing that would have left most ordinary mortals quaking in their boots. Not our man though.

He heard my mother through patiently, with a faintly amused expression on his face. Then, without a care or worry in the world, a huge smile on his face which suggested that my mother's plea in the name of professionalism had clearly missed its mark, he repeated the query he had made from the kitchen window -- "Naukri hai?"

It was a reaction that left my mother spluttering, the wind completely taken out of her sail, she was at a loss for words. As my mother stood there speechless, our man coolly walked into the kitchen and took his position.

I have a friend in Delhi who, after working for a year at a stretch, quits his job and goes on a (for the lack of a more apt word) "walkabout". I have seen him follow this almost-annual routine for the past fifteen odd years. For as long as the money that he has saved lasts, he does not come back. He holes up somewhere, or just travels to some new place (he is known to be partial to the hills). Then he comes back to Delhi, only when he absolutely has to, knocks on the doors of prospective employers with a "Naukri hai?" query.

Oh, I want to do that, too. But somehow never manage to. Never have the courage to. I am too attached to my worldly comforts, the sense of responsibility (in the broader, social sense that we know it) too deeply ingrained to take a step that would just make you happy. Such a silly thing that, anyway, chasing happiness. Not the most practical or worldly wise thing to do.

Fo those of us unable, perhaps even disabled, to go on these "walkabouts", (because in my friend's words, "You people have raised the stakes yourselves"), all I can say is it is up to us really to lower those stakes. I can't do it on an annual basis, and God knows I have been tempted. I do have a long-term plan.

The plan is simple but has been a constant the past twenty years and more -- a two-floor wooden building with glass windows at the edge of a beach, with a bookshop on the ground floor and a small eatery on the floor above, selling seafood and wine. Of course, I would own the place, but I see myself as a serious consumer on both the floors.

I even know where I want that bookshop-bar, on the edge of the Radhanagar Beach (hope you like the picture), in Havelock Island in Andamans. I just have to close my eyes and can picture the wood-and-glass building, where the sand ends and grass begins to grow.

In 1986, when I had just completed my post-graduation and was traveling through Andamans, one winter morning I found myself walking on the pristine white sands of Radhanagar Beach.

It was a magical morning. Hardly a soul in sight, the sun had just risen. A bunch of white pelicans frolicked in the water as if they owned the beach. The birds would whoosh down on the water and fly away and then delicately but expertly perch themselves again, surfer-like, atop an incoming wave. You could hear the distinct sound of bird wings flapping, and of waves crashing on the land. Your own breath sounded like an intruder.

As I stood witness to one of the most beautiful picture postcard moments of my life, I knew then and there, this is a place I would want to keep coming back to, specially in my later years. On the edge of that beach, I knew I wanted my bookshop-bar.

Twenty years on, as I am much closer to the aforementioned later years, the dream is still intact. As lot of things which were once important to me slip from my grip, I hold on to it, this dream, with a determination that is often uncharacteristically fierce. On good days, the dream makes me incredibly happy. On bad days, the dream just appears a lot more distant than what it should be.

The only thing that's perhaps changed in my mind over the years is the name of the bookshop-bar. Instead of Rajan's, I think I will settle for Ritwik's.