Stories Of Young Love Read Online Free PDF

there. We were always on our best
behaviour, no shouting or laughing aloud. Hell, we weren’t so well
behaved even in class. But when Adil came to my house or went to
another friend’s there were no such unwritten rules of decorum. We
just had to be careful not to break anything but otherwise we could
be boys.
    I don’t remember
being under any obligation to Adil’s father. He didn’t write my
exam to get a seat at the best medical college, did he? He didn’t
get me a job either. What did he do for me? And yet, if his ghost
walked up to me now, I would smooth out this sheet, slick my hair
back, click my heels at attention before saying ‘hello, uncle’. I
hate being in awe of anyone, especially if I am not beholden to
that person for anything, which quite clearly is the case with
Adil’s father. Or maybe I am. Perhaps, it was an honour for us to
be allowed to be Adil’s friends.
    Or am I in awe of
Adil? See, I can write a prescription and I have cleared exams he
couldn’t, or didn’t, but I can’t write. Not write-write, you know
what I mean? It’s not about words and grammar, but about spinning a
yarn. When I tell a story, I want to get to the end of it. Be done
with it. But that’s not what writers do. Can you imagine Dickens
wrapping up Pride and Prejudice in two pages? Not Dickens, I know,
I mean that other person, what’s the name?
    And Adil must be
some good, for off and on a story he has written comes out
somewhere and then he isn’t very happy about it because, he says,
the fool of an editor has clipped this or that meaty part, or
twisted and shortened something so much that it’s a shame he left
his, Adil’s, title on top of it. I can never understand it. If a
paper I wrote got published somewhere big, like The Lancet, I would
be thrilled, never mind if they rewrote the whole thing themselves.
But that’s me.
    The problem is
that Adil does get published sometimes. If he didn’t, I would show
him the light, set him to do some hard, honest work, or show him
the door. I could certainly try to get him a job in my hospital’s
public relations department, but there’s no chance of his agreeing
till some editor somewhere thinks he is good enough to publish.
    And so, I have a
Mac on the antique table because real writers don’t use a PC.
There’s a coffee grinder and an old fashioned percolator on a
sideboard, although instant coffee will do just fine for me. In
fact, I prefer the cheap, green Bru that’s blended with chicory to
pure-coffee Bru Gold. All that I can say for his coffee arrangement
is that it makes the house smell nice, like a Cafe Coffee Day.
    ***
    Adil writes a
lot, and all sorts of things. He’s written 10 or 11 novels in the
two years he has been staying with me. How, you are wondering?
Well, he writes 3,000 words a day, 60,000 a month, 120,000 in two
months. And he says that’s the right length for a novel. He won’t
sit down to breakfast until he’s written his first 1,000. Then he
reads the newspaper until I wake up (I am always on the late shift,
didn’t I tell you?), and that’s usually after 11am. He folds the
paper neatly, as if it’s not been opened, brews his fancy coffee
and gives me the paper along with a steaming mug. I make my own
toast and I wash both mugs. In his mind, the coffee settles his
debt towards me, I am sure.
    The other 2,000
words are written after I leave in the afternoon. He listens to me
with paper and pen in hand. I found it disconcerting in the
beginning but now I don’t notice it. He says his fiction feeds on
life, and since he goes out but rarely, and meets people seldom, he
depends on my work-life gossip to colour his stories and
characters. When I first read a draft of a story set in my hospital
I was aghast. I hadn’t expected him to paint such a lifelike
picture of my circle. I was horrified because I thought the book
would have serious social consequences for me.
    I need not have
bothered. The gulf between writing and being published is