One evening I followed Paras on Twitter. I must have liked one of his tweets. Then a few more tweets, then scrolled his feed. I didn’t know what he was working on. Just that he is a chill guy with interesting thoughts and has good taste in books. 18 months went by, I read 100s of his tweets but I don’t remember most of them.
Which is funny because that’s how twitter works. You remember the essence of the person more than their tweets. A persona gets built in your mind and subconsciously you learn a lot from them as their unfiltered thoughts take space in your mind.
So I started embodying his philosophy about work, life and books. Whenever I got a craving for a new book recommendation, I looked up his feed.
He always shared his book recommendation with a picture of the paperback. I had to ask, “How do you manage all your paperbacks?”
He shared images of his home.
Every corner filled with books. Shelves, boxes, floor. It all looked so beautiful. So mind gasming. Then I saw that one picture. A girl surrounded by books in her studio.
I thought, “How beautiful it would be live like that. In a home surrounded by physical books.”
Then I patted myself on the head. “Idiot! Stop thinking like that. You have to travel the world. You can’t carry the physical burden of books. Think practically.”
But the images looked so lovely, that it sparked my love of physical books all over again. I looked at my kindle and thought, “You are good, but what if we bring home some classics as well?”
I got some classics that I wanted to read for a while. But on Kindle, I somehow picked more contemporary books. The classics I got:
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Nirmala by Premchand
Gunahon Ka Devta by Dharamvir Bharati
The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
Kai Chaand The Sar-e-asman by Shamsur Rahman Faruqi
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
Once an idea has taken root in your mind. You can turn it into reality with tiniest of your actions. Along with kindle, paperbacks also became by travel companions. On every trip I carry 2-3 paperbacks with me. I know exactly when and where I am going to read them.
All this talk about books and how I can I not mention Paras’s own book: The Book of Clarity: Building Your Dream Startup Using First Principles Thinking
The moment I saw his tweet about his book launch, within 3 seconds I went to amazon and ordered it. And voila! I received a signed copy by Paras & Aakanksha (the illustrator of the book).
Make good work a habit & do it for it’s own sake.
Any attention from the world ought to be a welcome surprise, not an expectation.
- Paras
I was so happy that I created a video in excitement and posted on X. The caption said, “Would love to meet you guys some day.” I didn’t have any expectations. It’s just something I wrote as an afterthought…. throwing it in the wind… because what are the odds of that happening.
Here’s the video of me yapping about the book.
The beautiful thing about Twitter is, you can reach out to anyone and there’s a chance they might reply. That’s what Aakanksha did, she said “Lets meeeet!!!!”
AND WE MET!!!!
On the way to meeting her, I was thinking what should I ask, what should be the focus of our conversation. So, I started reading through her blog.
When I met her, I didn’t talk about her illustrations. I didn’t talk about her work either. I just dived straight into her eccentric tastes.
None of her friends like matcha but she proudly likes it. She told me how it’s lighter, less caffeinated than coffee, and that only a handful of places in India make it right.
She is into Japanese interiors and Indian aesthetics. She doesn’t like how the cafes are utilized for creating similar ambience, similar structure, mirror images at every turn.
When it came to designing her home, she said to the interior designer, “You don’t need to worry about adding too much color. The books stacked in every corner will take care of it. They’d be the soul of the interiors.”
She seemed like a free spirit who has her quirks. Every once in a while she joins a summer school to explore art, poetry, journaling, painting and a few more beautiful things. She loves learning. Her favourite thing is to sit in a lecture and soak it all in.
She mentioned I am younger to her but her passion for experimentation, staying open to doing new things and her creative bursts never made me feel she is older to me.
That’s why I think, yapping about things that excite you makes you age in reverse. You can be anything when you are excited but never dull, never boring.
Internet is an amazing void when it comes to yapping about things that excite you. You discover people who care about what you yap about.
Before you go, tell me —
Do you prefer Kindle, paperback, or audiobooks?
Have you ever met someone from the internet who changed your life?
If someone walked into your home, which book would you want them to notice first?
Feel free to reply. I’d love to know.
Much love,
Akanksha 🌻
This was great to read! So exciting you got to meet someone you admire, and that they met your expectations. Glad to see you back on Substack, hopefully more content is on the way.
Answers....
1/ Paperback
2/ Met a lot of people. Many people have changed lives. Too many to list. You are one of those. I've met you just once but so many lessons!
3/ It will depend on who's walking in. The general purpose one would be the biography of Steve Jobs.