A storybook about a man called Mr. Eccentric, whose hobby is collecting ordinary objects. The narrator meets him in Darjeeling and learns that each object has a story, often involving accidents or deaths. The book is illustrated and presented as a found diary with an editor's note.
This document is a storybook titled Mr. Eccentric, written and illustrated by Harsimran Kaur. It is a work of fiction presented as a found diary, with an editor's note explaining that the notebook was discovered in a hotel in Darjeeling. The intended audience is readers of literary fiction and illustrated stories.
The editor's note describes the diary's discovery in a desk drawer at the old Alice Villa in Darjeeling. The caretaker said it was left behind decades ago by a man who never returned. The early pages are a traveler's journal with 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, drownings, and deaths.
Chapter One introduces the narrator, a former bank employee, who meets Mr. Eccentric during a ten-day holiday in Darjeeling in early May. Mr. Eccentric is described as nearly six feet tall, with a bowed back and bulging veins, always wearing a white shirt, black flannel trousers, white socks, and tennis shoes, and carrying a stout walking stick. The narrator first sees him on Jalapahar Road, staring intently at grass, and later learns from Dr. Bhowmik that Mr. Eccentric's hobby is picking up…
Dr. Bhowmik, an old resident and the narrator's father's classmate, explains that Mr. Eccentric's surname is Mukherjee, he once taught physics at Ravenshaw College in Cuttack, and has a German degree in physics. He has lived in Darjeeling for nearly five years, renting a room in a cottage near Grindlays Bank. Dr. Bhowmik treats him for a septic knee and laughs at the nickname 'Eccentric,' saying the man claims every object in his collection has a story.
The narrator visits Mr. Eccentric's house at number seventeen, where he is recognized immediately. Inside, he sees a glass case covering a wall, with shelves displaying ordinary objects: a plant root, a rusted padlock, an ancient tin of Gold Flake cigarettes, a knitting needle, a shoe-brush, and old torch cells. Mr. Eccentric says only he knows the stories behind them, hinting at darker tales to come.