In Snow, a novel by Nobel prizing-winning author Orhan Pamuk, there’s this central character named Ka, a poet and a journalist, who unerringly senses when a poem dawns on him. Like the birth of a child, it may be not only at odd hours but at odd places too, and it has to be attended to. So wherever he is at that moment, he somehow makes a little room for himself, and scratches away on a piece of paper non-stop until the natural birth of the poem is complete.

Have you ever been in a bookshop looking for a title and ended up buying a different one? Or does it ever happen to you when you visit your favourite library that some books in particular stacked in open shelves placed at the far corners hidden from your immediate visual range silently beckon you to pick them up and carry them home and cohabit with them for a few weeks? Or, for that matter, you visit a book fair with an ardent love for books that have sustained you through a rather difficult time—having no idea what to expect?