Luput’s Storybook

Aniruddha Deb
1
Luput was on his way home from school. He was feeling very sad. The book exhibition and sale in
school today was the best he had ever seen. They had brought so many books! Some were colourful,
others were grey and black. Some were funny, while others were scary. There were books of adventure,
books on travel, books on historical stories… If only he could buy even one of them!
His friends, Pods, Nedo and Tups had bought a book each. Luput had watched them from a
distance. Earlier they would have lent him their books. They didn’t any more. The other day they had
told him off.
“You keep taking our books,” they had said. “Now try buying some, so that we all can read new
books from time to time.”
Dad had no money for storybooks after the factory had shut down. Dad brought books from
his friends from time to time for Luput. Ma, too, brought some books at times, but they were few and
far between and anyway he couldn’t lend those to his friends. One day Ma had even said that it was
impossible to bring enough books for Luput – so quickly did he finish reading them.
So, Luput could only watch as his friends bought the books. They didn’t even glance at him.
He was feeling miserable. By the time he reached the park, he was nearly in tears. He decided to
stop and wait till he felt better. He sat on a bench. The park was deserted because it was a rainy and
slushy evening. The old men of the village who sat on these benches were chatting in some tea shop
somewhere.
Luput sat for a while and watched a line of busy ants weave their way around the little puddles
left behind by the rain. He did not notice the man sidle up to sit beside him.
“Sad, are you?” Luput nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard the voice. “It is a sad thing
indeed when there is no new book to read.”
He was an old man. Short and bald — with a beard so long that it reached his knees when he
sat. He had twinkly eyes and a bag on his shoulder.
“How do you know why I am sad?” asked Luput suspiciously.
“I can see the sadness in your eyes,” said the old man.
“Yes,” said Luput. “But you can’t know why I am sad.”
“Of course I can,” said the old man. “All sadness are not the same. The sadness you feel when
you have no book, the sadness after quarreling with friends and the sadness of getting poor marks in an
exam — they aren’t the same, are they?”
Luput thought for a while. Then he agreed. Yes, he had felt the first two kinds of sadness today
and only a few days ago he had got poor marks in the English class test. The sadness he felt were not
the same.
“Enough chatting,” said the old man, jumping off the seat. He looked inside his bag, brought
out a slim bound book and said, “My gift to you. Read this. Then keep it away for a month and read it
again.”
“Why must I read it again?” asked Luput.
“Don’t you read a book again, sometimes?” asked the old man, his eyes twinkling.
He did. Often.
Just as Luput was reaching out for the book, the old man drew his hand back. “Wait,” he said.
“Let me write something in it...” he rummaged inside his bag, muttering, “Now what did I do with my
pen?” Then he said, “Give me your pen for a moment, will you?”
Luput took his pen out and handed it to the old man.
The old man scribbled in the book and finally gave it up. Then he lifted his finger.
“Do you have the habit of writing your name in your books? You do? Well, don’t write in this
one. Also, don’t lend it to anyone… well, you can, but you may not ever get it back again, you see!”
 Luput looked at the book curiously. The cover was white, with colourful drawings. In the centre
there were two children dressed in fur. All around them were pictures of walruses, seals and polar bears
on snow. There was a snowy owl on one of the children’s arm. Just like Harry Potter’s owl. The name
was written in bold purple letters — Ahnah and Akiak Are Lost. What kind of names were they? Were
they people who live in the snowy north of the world? Luput had heard of them.
He was going to ask, but the old man wasn’t there! Luput looked this way and that, he even
went round the banyan tree — the park was deserted, the street was empty. Where did he go?
It was getting late — Luput shoved the book into his satchel and ran home, feeling happier.
Evenings were spent studying with Dad. Since he had stopped working, Dad could not afford
to pay for tuition, so he supervised Luput’s studies. Luput went through Dad’s routine of going over
what was taught in school that day, doing his homework and then revising old studies as Dad saw fit.
Then he picked up the book.
The old man had written something on the fly-leaf. He had a clear handwriting, so Luput had
no difficulty reading it. ‘To Luput,’ it read, ‘ Well met — from a randon Old Man’. What a strange thing to
write! Luput noticed that the spelling of random was wrong. He smiled, turned the page and started
reading.
What an amazing story it was! Akiak and Ahnah were Inuit children from the far north of the
world. They lived in snow houses and rode sleighs pulled by Husky dogs. They hunted seals and
walruses for food and oil. This was a story of old times when a group of people had left their village to
hunt in the long summer of the North Pole with Ahnah and Akiak. About how Ahnah and Akiak had
got separated from the team and were lost on the snow for days. How they faced many adventures,
were nearly drowned in the freezing sea, nearly killed and eaten by polar bears and how they came back
safely to their village again. Once he started reading it, he could not put it down. He didn’t even hear
Ma calling him for dinner — she had to come to tell him that his food was on the table.
There would be no reading after dinner. They all went to bed immediately. It made things easier
in the morning for Luput. He could wake up for school in time. It also meant that lights would go off
early, saving on electric bill. However, Luput did not want to go to bed with the book unfinished. He
started eating fast.
“You’ll choke,” warned Ma, but Dad smiled. “He’s got a new book, I saw it in his bag.”
“No reason to choke over your food,” grumbled Ma.
Luput excused himself and went back to his book. He had finished it before Ma and Dad could
finish eating. What a book! What a book! He must tell the old man when he next saw him. Blood-
curdling adventure, nail-biting suspense and a happy ending — all mixed together! Just the kind of
book Luput liked.
He dreamed of Ahnah and Akiak that night. He was on the snow himself with them. He was a
part of their adventures, walking on the snow with special snowshoes that looked like they were made
of nets, avoiding hungry polar bears, catching fish to eat and going to sleep under the summer Arctic
sky, watching the green and pink lights of Aurora Borealis, always knowing that Akiak’s snowy owl was
somewhere close by.
Luput read the book every day for the next few days and dreamed of the snow lands every
night. He was very happy till his History class test results came back. His father tut-tutted and said that
some more efforts had to be put in for the coming half-yearly examinations.
He had no time to even think of the book till his exams were over.

2
More than a month had passed before Luput had time to think of reading a book again. The day his
half yearly exams were over, he came back home and stood before his bookshelf to decide what book
to read. He saw the book and pulled it down. A shiver of excitement ran down his spine as he ran with
it to the dining table, to read it as he snacked.
It was as exciting as it was before! Ahnah and Akiak had left the village with the hunters, they
travelled for three days and nights, looking for seals and walruses. Then the boy and the girl got
separated. They wandered a whole day and huddled under an overhang of ice to shelter from the cold
wind that night.
 Luput turned the page excitedly. He knew what would happen next. The dawn would come
with Akiak’s owl flying in on silent wings! He remembered that he had almost choked with tears of
relief the last time.
Akiak read on and stopped. Where was the owl? He scanned the page quickly. Had he forgotten
the story so soon! Did the owl come somewhere else? He turned the page and looked at the next two
pages, then the next… he reached the place where they were almost attacked by the polar bear. The
bear was lying in wait for them and Akiak’s owl had screeched a warning, when they had seen his black
eyes and nose, too. But, there was no owl any more! As he read, Ahnah slipped and let out a yell so
loud, that the bear took fright and ran off, lumbering.
Soon Luput realised that what he had remembered as a breathtaking adventure story was rather
a sort of funny story about a lost boy and a girl. It was as interesting to read, but different.
He hadn’t remembered the quarrel between Ahnah and Akiak. Or the place where they danced
across the ice, clutching each other, not for fun, but to stop themselves from falling down. It was funny
to read, though. So was the place where Akiak fished out a pair of shoes as he tried to catch fish. The
last time, a lot of their fishing was done by the owl.
Luput remembered the owl and stopped again. How could he have remembered an owl which
was not even there in the story? Its picture was there on the cover. He turned to see the cover and his
heart missed a beat. There was no owl. Akiak’s arm was bare and there was a seal at the bottom right
corner!
Had Luput forgotten so much of the book? Was Luput dreaming? That old man… he had
never seen him before, nor had he come back since… Luput turned the page. ‘To Luput,’ he read, ‘ Well
met — from a ramdom Old Man’.
Luput almost stopped breathing. He knew, he knew, he knew! He hadn’t made a mistake. Last
time, the spelling error with random had read randon. This time…
Luput looked up out of the window. It was not dark yet. He called, “Ma, I will go out for a
while — I won’t take long…”
“Don’t stay out late,” called his mother as he ran out.
The eastern sky was still pale blue and the western sky red when he reached. Today, too, the
park was deserted. Luput stood in front of the seat he had met the old man on, breathing heavily as he
had run all the way. There was no one about. He called, “Hey, old man,” softly at first and then more
loudly.
No one answered.
He sat down on the bench. Why was he feeling so upset? It wasn’t that the old man had said
Luput could come to meet him there — for all he knew he was from a distant village who was only
passing through…
“What happened? Didn’t you like the book?”
Luput nearly fell of the bench. There was the man, sitting beside him, looking at Luput with his
twinkly eyes, bright with mischievous smile. When did he come?
“Who are you?” asked Luput.
The old man shook his head. For a moment his eyes looked sad. “I don’t have a name,” he said.
“Tell me, did you read the book?”
Luput looked at the cover. The cover without the owl. The seal looked at him from the bottom
right hand corner.
“Does it change?” he asked, feeling a little foolish. “Does the story change?”
The old man gave a satisfied chuckle. “Every month,” he said. “If you don’t read it. If you
open the book within one month, you will have to wait for a month again.”
“Does everything change?” asked Luput again. “Even the pictures?”
“Everything,” said the old man.
“Even what you wrote,” said Luput excitedly. “That is why you had asked me not to write my
name in it.”
“Yes, or to give it to anybody,” agreed the old man. “Just imagine, your name changes to Pods
and he comes and accuses you of stealing his book! Or if you give it to Nedo and the book changes to
something else and you cannot find it ever again!”
 “Will it never come back to the original story?” asked Luput.
The old man shrugged. “These are a new kind of book. Even I don’t know what will happen. I
don’t even know what the original story was. It may have changed hundreds of times in my bag! Some
story or the other may come back — but you can’t ask for it. It will happen by itself.”
He jumped off the bench — just like last time. “Bye,” he said. “I have a long way to go...” he
ran beyond the banyan tree.
“Wait, listen,” called Luput, running after him. “Can I meet you here from time to time?”
No one replied. There was no one to reply. The old man had vanished.
Luput returned home. He read the book and gave it to his father. “Read this,” he said.
When he came back from school the next day, his father returned the book to him. “Great
story,” said he. “Strangely, there is no author’s name. Do you know who wrote it?”
Luput didn’t.
Luput kept the book away for a month. At the end of the month, he read a similar but new
story of an Inuit girl called Ahnah and a Scandinavian boy Maarten. He then gave the book to his
father. In an hour his father was back, his eyes wide with surprise!
“I will tell you how I got the book,” said Luput.

3
Luput never met the old man again. His father found a new job in another city and they moved. Luput
continued to read the book every month. After a few years he would read it every now and then, and
then, rarely, as he grew up. Every time, the story was different. A little different if he read it sooner and
a lot different if he picked it up after many months.
Luput finished school and college. He went to work in some other city. He still remembered his
book, though he had not seen it in years. He could buy any number of books now. He could buy books
for his daughter Kinti, too.
One summer, when they had come to visit Luput’s father during vacation, Kinti came running
to where her father and grandfather were chatting.
“Look what I found in Grandpa’s bookshelf!” she said excitedly.
It was a thin, bound book with a white cover. There was a drawing of a girl walking, with an
elephant following her. All around her were trees and vines, and jungle animals like the snake and the
tiger and the leopard. The name was written in bright orange letters: Intu in the Land of Elephants.
Luput looked at his father. “Is it the same one?” he asked.
His father smiled. “Yes,” he said. “I’ve been reading it almost every month since then.” He
looked at Kinti and said, “Make sure you keep it back after you read it. When you come next year, read
it again.”

4
The next year, Kinti came running again. This time, the name of the book was Pitim’s New Doll. “Look,
Papa,” she said. “That Intu storybook isn’t there any more. There is this new book in its place.”
Luput ruffled her hair. “Not a new book, but a new story,” he said. “Read it. Then keep it back.
Read it again after a month. It will be fun.”