EPILOGUE

 

Epilogue

 

Everyone in the crowd was left numb. There were a few questions left unanswered. The abrupt end of the story baffled many. The majority of the crowd was waiting for Sampoorna to continue the story. But Sampoorna herself had started crying.

 

The clean shaven, bespectacled fat guy wearing a blue shirt and light blue jeans walked up to Sampoorna and wiped her face with a kerchief. “Thanks, Saahil beta,” Sampoorna said. The mike was still on. The crowd was perplexed.

 

“Ma’am, is this book a true story? The name of the guy who just helped you with a kerchief is the same as that of the impotent guy in the book! So is he the real Saahil and you are the real Kavitha Amma?” asked a curious reader from the crowd.

 

Sampoorna looked at Saahil and then at the crowd and said, “Yes. I am the Kavitha Amma from the story I just narrated. And he is my dear Saahil. We both miss our Sneha and Rahul a lot. After their deaths, we found their diaries. Sneha’s parents moved to US with their elder daughter, but handed over the diary to Saahil and me. They had understood Saahil’s love for Sneha and Sneha’s love for me. I found Rahul’s diary when his room was being cleaned after his death. After I moved in to Saahil’s house, one fine day I found Saahil’s diary and Sneha’s. I immediately got down to reading their thoughts, experiences, views and everything and then I saw a pattern amongst the diaries of my 3 dear kids. I had all the facts available with me. All I had to do was put those facts in proper order and come up with a book. This book is a true story. Just like one of the many countless stories happening every second in every nook and corner of the world.”

 

“So, Ma’am, what is one point or lesson or suggestion that we should take from this book?” asked the compere.

 

“I wish there was just one main point or suggestion. There are many things to learn, I would say. And to explicitly say one point would be an insult to the many different takeaways from the book. So, I would rather let the reader decide what to extract,” Kavitha Amma said.

 

Irfan Siddique and Sonali Sinha got their copies signed from Kavitha Amma and then there was a long queue to get copies signed by the oldest debut author of India.