Bhoot, Chor and Chai

Vellichor — it’s a word that stayed with me.

That wistful pull of old books, faded ink, and stories that outlive their storytellers.

This is my prem patra to forgotten pages, unhurried time, and the memories that find us when we least expect them.

This word has a strange ring to it — almost like a play on the Hindi word chor, which means thief.

According to the dictionary, vellichor is the wistfulness or nostalgia one feels in a used bookstore, surrounded by old books. What is it about musty-smelling pages and dog-eared corners that makes me all ruminative? I don’t quite know. But I’ve felt it — many times — in those dusty little stores that stack forgotten treasures.

Case in point: every time I’m in Bangalore, I make it a point to visit Bookworm — that quiet bookstore tucked away in a corner on Church Street. It’s been a favourite for many years. I can’t even count the afternoons I’ve spent thumbing through pages… hoping, half-seriously, for an elf with a red pointed hat and green boots to materialise and say,“Your wish is my command.”

Time hangs unhurried here.Fragments of memory and lived experience, arranged shelf upon shelf, beckon me to step into another life.

I could be the girl with pigtails and blue ribbons, books in a satchel, cycling to school.Or the gentleman with hair as white as snow and a grizzled beard, nestled in a rocking chair, enjoying an afternoon siesta with Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina clasped loosely between his hands.

I could be anyone.

Sometimes, I walk over to India Coffee House nearby — famous for its dosas and cutlets. I sit with a worn old paperback, the first page often inscribed in faded ink by a previous owner. My dad accompanies me on several occasions — words unspoken, but always knowing this is home to me.

The name, the date on the book — they teleport me.Transmogrify me.(I’ve been wanting to use that word for a long time!)

It’s akin to having a Back to the Future déjà vu moment. In a morbid thought, it could be a ghost from the past — perhaps a friendly one, like Casper.Hopefully not one of the Ramsay Brothers’ fresh-off-the-grave shaitans, I implore quietly to the heavens above.

That said, I still wouldn’t go near a used copy of Bram Stoker’s Dracula — even though I’ve read it a million times, half-expecting to see the Count float in through my window at night, red eyes gleaming and lustful, sinking his long canines into my neck!

So much for dreamy notions of cozy afternoons spent reading, with creaking shelves groaning under the weight of forgotten tomes.

I do make a mental note of the contradiction — a fear of the absurd and a flair for the theatrical —must jot that down in my journal.

Nostalgia is magical, isn’t it? A yearning to return. A longing to revisit the echoes. To understand the person we once were.

It’s part melancholic, too. Manifesting as that quiet ache — for footprints erased, or the ceaseless search for a face that now blends into the crowd?

And then, there’s the reality of sifting sands… and marching time.A constant reminder of its passage. It always centres me. Keeps me from levitating.

So if I were to circle back to where I began — with vellichor sounding like chor — maybe it’s fitting. Because time is a thief, isn’t it?It sneaks up on us, stealthily. It takes without asking.

But time gives, too — and generously — when we’re open to change. To acceptance. To new adventures.

When we open ourselves to the quiet realisation that the past doesn’t need to stay confined to the pages of a book —to be a prisoner chained to destiny.

When unearthed from the ancient, mysterious consciousness we carry…the past, etched like a rune, holds an alchemy powerful enough to transform.To guide.To fashion the present into the future.

Who knew a used book — faded and old — could be a link between the past and the present in more ways than one?

Currently, I’m swinging between two worlds — the cult classic The Catcher in the Rye and the more cerebral terrain of Malcolm Gladwell’s Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don’t Know.

Two different times. Two different genres.But a common thread runs through them both: Self-awareness. Deceit. Intelligence.

The same human story

rehashed, rephrased, and repeated.

I write about what makes me smile… and what makes me toil.

 It’s a peek into my world — the chaos, the small wins, the big emotions… and the family that fuels it all.

I am just rolling, flowing, roiling… through everyday life.

 If this made you smile or chuckle, come back on Tuesdays and Thursdays for more stories to sip with your chai latte… or coffee.Sanjana

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