The Counsellors

By Danish Abdi

This book is a philosophical journey, through conversations - and a treasure hunt. It explores everything our lives are made up of; what happens to us, and what we do to ourselves. It was inspired by a cycling trip, and endless musings with restless minds. I hope some chapters resonate with yours as well, and we can find a tiny bit of counsel in each other someday. Do look out for a genre twist, and a teaser for the next book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: MINDPOP
• Release date: Mar 14, 2019
• ISBN: 9781386550891

Danish Abdi

Danish Abdi hails from Bhavnagar (Gujarat), having spent most of his childhood there. After his higher schooling from Vadodara, he graduated from BITS Pilani, Pilani campus, with B.E (Hons.) in Electrical and Electronics Engineering. He is a musician, writer, sketch artist, travel and nature enthusiast, an ardent cyclist, and currently works in JP Morgan & Chase, Bangalore. He maintains a blog detailing his travels (wanderingdanish.blogspot.in) and has a YouTube channel. His father was an organic chemist with CSMCRI and is now a consultant in Indirapuram. His mother worked as an environment researcher with CEE and is now a freelance writer. They’re both amateur photographers. He has an elder brother, working as a journalist in New Delhi.

Book preview

Chapter - 1 : Words

It was raining; pretty hard.

Overcast skies always made me gloomy, and I had taken to cycling under them to escape the melancholy. The speed, battling the wind and the rain, the rush of adrenaline, and always moving; I found my peace within the chaos, the eye of the storm. Otherwise, I would sit for hours; feeling smaller and smaller with every passing raindrop until I became one of them, shattering into a thousand shards when the ground hit - like reality often does.

The most dangerous kind of sadness was the one you liked.

Today, however, was no mere escapist cycle ride. I had been called upon - by a chit.

Come hither, mighty cloud, I need to talk.

I remembered the words, brushing the raindrops out of my eyebrows. It was the standard one-chit-leads-to-the-next paradigm; why I was following it, I wasn’t sure yet.

It was the eve of my birthday, and some of my closest friends had decided that I would probably enjoy a pan-Bangalore treasure hunt on my cycle; in the rain. Of course I would enjoy it, but this meant my birthdays were only going to get more masochistic.

If I had guessed the pattern correctly, the clues would all be opening lines from my poems in Blue Letters, my first book. And if I had guessed my friends correctly, the first clue was taking me to Blossoms Book Store, on Church Street - where, almost a year ago, one of them had called me to Talk; with a capital T. Was this going to be another one?

I took the familiar left from MG Road, and another right onto Church Street. As the bookstore loomed out of the rain, I saw her standing there. It looked like she was right in the middle of the downpour; and yet, she wasn’t getting drenched.

‘Hey,’ I greeted her.

‘Hey,’ she replied.

We stood in the rain for a while.

‘If you’re worried, I’m not here about the past or the future; I just want to wish you a happy birthday,’ she smiled reassuringly.

‘Thank you,’ I grinned; looking too relieved, I felt.

‘But,’ my smile faded at that. ‘We do need to talk.’ She laughed, bemused at my expression. ‘Not with a capital T this time, relax. We’ll just talk for some time, and if I feel you deserve the second clue, I’ll give it to you.’ She winked.

‘That’s it? No paper hidden in some special book that appears when I recite a poem backwards or something?’ I raised an eyebrow; metaphorically, of course - I could only raise both together, and that just made it look like I was going to be run over by a train.

Apparently, I was.

‘This is no standard talk either,’ she grinned evilly, taking a seat on the steps of the bookstore, and beckoning me to sit next to her. ‘I have a year’s worth of trains of thought, barrelling towards you. Come.’

I walked over and sat on the sacrificial altar.

‘How have you been? It’s been long.’ I squeaked, much like a runaway debtor to a loan shark who finally has him at gunpoint.

She laughed hard at that. ‘No you don’t; I’m not some acquaintance that we’ll just update each other’s timelines and go our merry ways - especially given the kinds of talks we’ve had.’

I looked at her properly, at last. The rain had quietened, as if waiting for us to speak.

‘Do you miss me?’ She asked, cocking her head to one side.

‘Yes,’ I replied instinctively. I could talk to her like I could to no one. Of course I missed her.

‘Why?’

‘Well...’ I stammered, and immediately realized this deserved more eloquence. ‘When I speak to you, I feel really free. There’s no judgement, no expectations, no hesitation; the words flow effortlessly.’

She smiled softly. ‘What if we didn’t have words?’

I looked at her, bemused. ‘You mean starting now?’

‘No no,’ she laughed. ‘Today is all about talking. Just hypothetically - if you fell in love with our words, our conversations; then it’s not really me you miss, right? 

‘But what are the true colours of a person, if not their words?’

She shrugged. ‘Maybe words are just more stories; slightly true, slightly made up. I can weave a whole new person, a fresh history; a painting of false colours.’

‘But how is that not part of who you are? I think you are as much the lies you weave as the truths you confess; because we all lie - to ourselves the most.’

‘Damn,’ she grinned. ‘The overcast sky really makes you grim.’

I chuckled. ‘Who thought it was a good idea to keep a treasure hunt on a rainy day? You should’ve seen me on my birthday in good old sunny Pilani; I was practically a teletubby.’

‘You’ve got the looks for it,’ she nudged me. I was never going to live down the chocolate boy image.

‘You’re right,’ I told her, my smile fading. ‘Maybe without conversations, we wouldn’t get attracted to anyone. Doesn’t explain blow-up dolls, though.’

‘Oh God,’ she slapped her forehead. ‘Yeah, that’s mostly a guy problem. We girls are a lot less superficial.’ She turned up her nose at me. ‘I can’t even imagine getting aroused by latex and silicone.’

‘Hey, if we had no words, that’s the truest form of love.’ I