The year was 2005.
I'd just started studying at a new school, and discovering the joys (?) of being a teen. My first tryst with 'board exams' was over, and I was bored out of my mind. The internet was a fairly recent discovery for me courtesy my big brother, and I was on a music and anime downloading frenzy. I needed more to read. School was closed for the holidays and summer consisted of boringly long days in Gurgaon.
So I raided the brother's bookshelf and he got me all excited about this curious book called The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The cover said 'A trilogy in four parts'. It made me grin and wonder what to look forward to.
Sidenote: be sure to check out Project Bibliotherapy's fascinating and exhaustive guide to H2G2:

The Bibliophile's Guide to H2G2

Greetings, fellow inhabitants of the Universe.

bibliotherapy.stck.me

A few pages in, and I couldn't put it down. I was in my existentialist, angsty phase and just learning the intricacies of sarcastic humour, so it was a delight. Outer space. Hilarious dialogue. Crazy situations. What more could one need?

Douglas Adams brought that childhood wonder back to me during a turbulent teen phase of angst, puberty and adolescent depression. His signature turn of phrase made me howl out loud with laughter like very few authors could. The situations described in the book, and what Arthur goes through, were my first brush with how absurd life really is.

Here are the many ways it still remains one of my favourite reads from the past -

The effect THHGTTG had on me

1. The notion of the Earth being destroyed to build a highway reminded me of many absurd and similar situations in Delhi

2. Marvin the Paranoid Android is a constant mood (even more now, har har).

3. And for a person who loves how words 'look', Adams inventing new words was awesome to me. (I could finally tell the annoying boys in my class to zark off.).

4. 'Don't Panic'. Simple but sage advice, one that's stayed with me for years now.

5. The realisation that no matter how hard we plan and analyse, life has a way of being rather random, sometimes delightfully so, and sometimes absurd.

6. Sometimes, you just take what life throws at you and run with it. Sure, it sucks and can be terrifying sometimes. But - Don't panic. You'll end up with some incredible adventures! Life has its own strange way of coming full circle, like it did for me.

7. I too, love the whooshing sound deadlines make as they pass by :P

8. Most of all, the randomness of it all, the hilarity of the dialogue, and, as I later discovered, the circumstances that led DNA to write this book, all sort of made it all the more fun.
   
   Finally, in a very unexpected way earlier last year, I stumbled upon a fellow Douglas Adams fan under serendipitous circumstances (during the second wave of a global pandemic, no less).
   After a whirlwind year of a million conversations, laughs and mutual geeking out, we decided to explore life, the universe and everything for the rest of our lives together :)

   We may not have all the answers yet. We may still be in one of the weirdest timelines in all of history (DNA would've had so much to say now if he was alive, sigh. A pandemic. Locust swarms. Reality stars and fascists becoming world leaders). But there's one thing we know for certain.

   42 is the Answer :P

Bartender's Specials
Or
Extras that you'd only find past 2 am in drunk conversations about life, the universe and everything :D )

Unfortunately it's archived now but here's the BBC's Vogon Poetry Generator :D

This recipe for a Pan Galactic Gargle-Blaster. The website has fictional recipes from tons of amazing books!

Another beautifully shot and described recipe for that infamous drink.

The Best of Marvin from the H2G2 movie:

10 things in pop culture that were inspired by the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

This fascinating read on how the book 'challenges the conceptualisation of the cosmos'

42 reasons from Penguin on why the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is beyond brilliant

Leaving you with one of his trippiest quotes ever:

"How can I tell,' said the man, 'that the past isn't a fiction designed to account for the discrepancy between my immediate physical sensations and my state of mind?"

— from The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980)

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So long, and thanks for all the fish!