A storybook about a man called Mr. Eccentric, who collects ordinary objects and tells stories about them. The book is framed as a diary found in a hotel in Darjeeling, with an editor's note and a first chapter describing the narrator's first meeting with Mr. Eccentric.
Mr. Eccentric is a storybook written and illustrated by Harsimran Kaur, published by Harsimran Kaur Publications. It is a work of fiction presented as a diary found in a hotel in Darjeeling, with an editor's note explaining the discovery.
The editor's note describes finding a notebook in a desk at the old Alice Villa in Darjeeling. The notebook contains neat handwriting and sketches of the hill town, but later entries grow restless and darker, with drawings of small objects like a button, a glove, a broken lens, and a walking stick, each numbered and accompanied by fragments of stories about accidents and deaths.
Chapter One introduces the narrator, a former bank employee, who meets Mr. Eccentric during a holiday in Darjeeling. Mr. Eccentric is described as nearly six feet tall, with a bowed back and veins bulging from his skin, always wearing a white shirt, black flannel trousers, white socks, and white tennis shoes, and carrying a stout walking stick.
The narrator first sees Mr. Eccentric on Jalapahar Road, where he is intensely staring at grass and picks up a button. Later, an old resident, Dr. Bhowmik, tells the narrator that Mr. Eccentric's hobby is collecting ordinary objects and that he claims each has a story. Dr. Bhowmik also mentions that Mr. Eccentric used to teach physics at Ravenshaw College in Cuttack and has a German degree.
The narrator visits Mr. Eccentric's house, number seventeen, and sees a glass case with shelves displaying objects like a plant root, a rusted padlock, an old tin of Gold Flake cigarettes, a knitting needle, a shoe-brush, and old torch cells. Mr. Eccentric says that only he knows the stories behind these objects.