My Den/Arun Sachdev

There's no missing Arun Sachdev, if Gallery 7 is what you step into. In one corner of the breezy, done in creamy white gallery hall, sits his wooden table, with an interesting clock, a note pad besides the regular stuff. And Arun, who owns the gallery with his wife, leans back in his chair, in this corner, his den, looking out of the glass window, somewhere far towards the sea. ``You can see the sea from all the rooms here, but this is one where I can keep looking sitting right here on my chair. And then the other window opens to the moon. Lovely sights from all sides,'' he grins. Arun's den is this quiet corner which he feels is his only space here. ``I don't have to share it with anyone and all my thoughts, reflections, dreams... span across me while I sit here, taking in the paintings hung around. Paintings have a way of growing on you. You can trinket with them the way kids do with toys. And you never get bored,'' he smiles. And then his long hours spent sitting here are also some of his mostprolific. He reads here. These days it's In Vidia's Shadow' by Paul Thoreaux, a book that has absolutely bowled him over. ``I keep presenting it to friends and acquaintances. Never had I set my eyes on English written so well to tell a story so moving.'' Some of his other hours here go into writing... this one time theatre actor-director writes screenplays, is now working on a novel based on one of them -- The Family. But most of his hours go into meeting people who keep walking in, with all kinds of backgrounds, circumstances, many-hued lifestyles...``I observe them, talk to them as they go about opening up their own little diaries within, their dreams, or simply wanting to prove a certain point... on the whole, I love chatting them up.'' A people's person at most times, Arun's den just could not have been any place else.

-- BALPREET

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