Never The Butterfly | Ankur Ashta | Kharidobechobooks

Blessed with a father, who would not intrude into anyone else’s business unless it was impolite behaviour or wrong usage of English, Mohan willy-nilly develops a love-hate relationship with the language. He is brimful of grievances against English – for a long time, he couldn’t bring himself to acknowledge that ‘inflammable’ signified something that caught fire and burnt easily and that it was a synonym to ‘flammable’ – yet, at the same time, can’t stand it being subjected to incorrect usage.

Other than this special skill or interest, his existence is nondescript. He is busy with his mundane pursuits when an unpleasant meeting with Saanjh begins to change the course of his life. While his tussle with English continues to be an inseparable part of his being, a parallel journey from hatred to indifference to love for this unpredictable girl brings him face-to-face with untouched facets of his life. He is adrift in a world of bewilderment, making sense of some of these facets and bringing them into harmony when he meets Aaradhya, an enigmatic young woman known for her beauty, mood swings and poems. Mohan is yet to decrypt her when she departs secretly from the venue of their first private meeting, leaving behind just a sad poem.