Slipping on a wet floor is not as uncommon as some would want us to believe. It happens only too often with the usual results: all sensitivity gone from the body, as one lies helpless; neck twisted, a leg caught in the balusters and hands outstretched under an immobile body.
And that is exactly how you would have found Vikram Purohit, on the floor of his flat on the 18th floor. He missed his flight, returned home to take a shower when the doorbell rang and hastened towards the door. The glistening tiles make up for the rest.
The worst being, his help and personal staff are on leave. Everyone believes he has gone on holiday to Goa.
As he lies helpless in his own den, his mind takes him on an incredible journey into the past. What unravels, a page at a time, is the family’s chequered history:
lost love, an estranged wife, an unhappy daughter and employees who are quite happy to hear the old grumpy has finally gone off on a holiday to the sun-kissed beaches of Goa.
I wish the editors had spent more time in clipping text where the little cup does somewhat run over.
Blinks In Blackout takes the reader on a journey through the innermost recesses of the mind. It travels through a street where the lampposts are not symmetrically arranged.
One layer at a time, much like the unpeeling of an onion, you find the protagonist is a believer in miracles, infatuated, chasing fortunes, chiseling his own path while yearning to leave his footprints on the sands of time.
On another level, the story can be mystical and surreal. Sometimes it is not too bad to be immobile or go through a blackout to realise that the truth bubbles are just below the surface struggling to be liberated. Vikram is, in a way, forced to confront the demons of the mind.