A Good Bargain

Just went on my occasional book-buying spree. It had been a sort-of tradition with me till last year, but this year, all traditions and routines have flown out of the window. Of late, I was beginning to feel guilty of abandoning my passion. So, today was a moment of repentance.

For my friends, a summary of my proposed penance:

1. The Collected Short Stories of Saki – Hector Hugh Munro
2. The Moonstone – Wilkie Collins
3. The Man Who Would Be King & Other Stories – Rudyard Kipling
4. The Diamond as Big as the Ritz & Other Stories – F. Scott Fitzgerald
5. Les Misérables (Volume 1) – Victor Hugo
6. Silas Marner – George Eliot
7. The Inimitable Jeeves – P.G. Wodehouse
8. The Girl in Blue – P. G. Wodehouse
9. Aunts Aren’t Gentlemen – P.G. Wodehouse
10. Big Money - P.G. Wodehouse
11. Ring For Jeeves - P.G. Wodehouse
12. Jeeves in the Offing - P.G. Wodehouse
13. The Clicking of Cuthbert - P.G. Wodehouse
14. Piccadilly Jim - P.G. Wodehouse
15. Right Ho, Jeeves - P.G. Wodehouse
16. Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves - P.G. Wodehouse

16 books, and can you imagine, the tab came up to just Rs. 1482. That makes it just Rs. 92 (approx. $2 or £1.15) per book. A real bargain if any. Mumbai offers a splendid deal when it comes to buying quality stuff at low costs, be it from street dealers or even from officious book-stores (of course the book stores nowadays are more friendlier than ever before). I haven’t had the opportunity to see elsewhere so really cannot comment on a comparative basis.

An Ode to Books....

Thomas Carlyle once said, “After all manner of professors have done their best for us, the place we are to get knowledge is in books. The true university of these days is a collection of books.” No matter if Mr. Carlyle said these words during the Victorian era, but they still ring true in this age as well.

To my mind, there is no greater joy, no more divine bliss, than to have a book to read. There are good books, there are great books, and there are books which simply are unmentionable except as expletives. And yet, despite all this, each and every book has a story to tell, no matter how drab or dull it may seem. In this respect, books are like people; you have interesting people, beautiful people, charming people, boring people, obnoxious people, dull people et al. You deal with each one of them in a different manner, but you deal with every one of them, sine prejudice.

I have a habit of buying the books that I read. I find it most cumbersome to read a book and then return it to a library. The joy of reading a book is not so much in breaking the freshness of the print, as in revisiting the text, like one goes back to an old friend. One cannot take such liberties with borrowed books; it’s somewhat scandalous to think so.

Of late, I have spending a lot of money on books, to the extent that my parents are wont to boast that my salary seems dedicated to buying books and no more. I don’t find it a distressing thought; come to think of it, I recollect having read that when a habit begins to cost money, it’s called a hobby. So, buying books would be my hobby, though not one which I can list down in my curriculum vitae.

It is said that people don’t find the time to read books nowadays. I don’t know where the statisticians quoting these ‘facts’ are finding their data, but looking at the crowds in the local book stores and the bags of books that they buy, I wonder why they must buy them, if not to read them. Bibliophiles are, or rather have never been an endangered species. Au contraire, they are a flourishing breed; if not more overt, they are certainly more discriminating in their choices.

Whatever this may mean, I only see a good future for books, irrespective of distractions like television, the computer (read the Internet and e-books) and video games. After all, In the end, you can’t take a computer to bed, or snuggle into a comfy chair with a cup of hot chocolate on a rainy day with a television in hand.

Books Forever

Google has announced its plan to digitize every book, every tome, in the printing world. And somehow, this hasn’t disturbed me too much. Maybe this is because I really was never so much of a computer guy, a man whose life is dictated by the bytes and bits of the processor. My world is inhabited by people, and most importantly, books. Mind you, my books aren’t digitized, and I am thankful for that.
For if they were digitized, how on earth would I read them in those cold nights in the light of candles when the electricity forsook me to visit her mom at the power plant? How on earth would I feel the rustle of the pages, the swiftness of the passage of time as I rushed through the chapters? How could I leave a tome partially unread, and then rush back to it, guilty in that I forsook a friend? Books aren’t such pages bound in a hard cover, covered with publisher’s ink. They are living entities, the sentinels of their time, and the markers of eternity.
To digitize them would merely take away their allure, their mystery from them, and render them so very ordinary. And yet, when I say this, I have committed the most abominable blasphemy, the most heretical sacrilege. For books have been the harbingers of change. They have given hope where hopelessness reigned supreme. They have consoled the grieving when the heavens seemed unable to come to provide succour. They have infused souls with inhuman courage when the hearts of men sought to liberate themselves from the yokes of oppression and tyranny. And in this context, if one were to ask the books, they would shrug their shoulders, maybe straighten out some ruffled pages, and say as simply,
Our's not to make reply,Our's not to reason why,Our's but to do and die.
Those who have delivered change will not shun change. For it is in evolution that we better ourselves. Maybe it is the destiny of mankind. It is not for us to question as to why it is just so.