Of books and a lost collection...

'That's the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet.'

- Jhumpa Lahiri (author of "The Namesake")

“I grabbed my book and opened it up. I wanted to smell it. Heck, I wanted to kiss it. Yes, kiss it. That's right, I am a book kisser. Maybe that's kind of perverted or maybe it's just romantic and highly intelligent.”

― Sherman Alexie, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

'A book is a dream that you hold in your hand.'

–Neil Gaiman

'I think of life as a good book. The further you get into it, the more it begins to make sense.'

–Harold Kushner

'If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.'

–Haruki Murakami

'In a good book the best is between the lines.'

–Swedish Proverb

'Are we not like two volumes of one book?'

–Marceline Desbordes-Valmore

'I can’t imagine a man really enjoying a book and reading it only once.'

–C.S. Lewis

(image source: www.marketmy book.in)

Over the past month, I had to go frequently to Fort (South Bombay) for certain court related matters. There are a lot of roadside bookshops in that area. I would invariably stop and pick up some which are a value for money proposition.

I read more non-fiction than fiction. I find non-fiction stranger and more interesting than fiction. After all fiction is imagination and non-fiction is what actually happened. However, whatever books I buy, I have a special fascination for children's books. Comics, novels and magazines - Tinkle, Amar Chitra Katha, Chandamama, Enid Blyton, Franklin Dixon, R K Narayan...the list is endless. Even today, I love reading them.

When I was a kid, I used to buy a lot of these magazines. But it invariably used to be from a waste paper mart - only second hand books. The thrill of finding a book not in your collection available for a pittance at a second hand shop for me is an experience I cherish always. My parents were only too happy to oblige. My only rule was that I would spend more than Rs.2 for a book! The majority of the books I bought ranged from 50 paise to Re.1. I would never buy a new book. I have bought books for 25 paise too! My biggest collection, apart from novels, was that of comics - mostly Amar Chitra Katha and Tinkle. A bit of Indrajal and Diamond here and there.

The thing about these books is that with their language and accompanying illustrations,  they transport you to a new world altogether.  Princes, princesses,  commoners, ghosts, goblins, picture perfect places - all leapt out of those books! Primarily the ability of the tales in those books is to transport send you to a world which was imaginary,  but real and one where you live for a period of time. 

I had a collection of more than 350 Amar Chitra Katha books (out of a total of only 436 titles printed then), a hundred odd Chandamama and equally handsome number of tinkle and tinkle digest books. I used to read and read re-read them again and again. They had to allocate additional and bigger racks at home to accommodate my never-ending collection.

I still remember the quality of the language in those books.  'Bajan Gupta,  the great miser,  once had a recurring dream....'.  "Dark was the night and weird the atmosphere..... But King Vikram swerved not..." The words stick with me even today.

I and my brother used to pick old binding covers of books from printing press shops and manually bind volumes of ten books each. We would get the ends cut through machines at the press. Then cover them with old calendar papers so that the white background would be visible outside. We would then neatly number and name them in myriad colours with various sketch pens.

I was immensely happy with my collection  after all it was  a  culmination of painstaking effort. A couple of racks in the house were allocated only for these books. Whenever I was down,  I used to see my collection and derive happiness and inspiration.  I was very proud of my collection because they were not bought off the shelf but put together like a sparrow collecting grain - from various nooks and corners of Madras city.

When I left for Bombay to join my present job in February 2002, my folks shifted from the first floor to the ground floor of the house.  They also moved my books,  I hear(!).  But, all those books were lost.  Even today they are unable to tell me what happened to those books which were so painstakingly collected -  most of them are not in print today.  When I think of what happened to my collection,  I am moved to tears even today.    Inconsolable.

I have started building my library again.  The issue is that my son does not seem to share my passion of reading. Hence if I collect,  it has to be for myself. I hope to find the same books.  Today I am willing to pay more. But awareness about private collections is more and these books are hard to find nowadays.

I know I may not find these old books again...but the thrill of stopping at an old book store with fond hope still remains. Ah, the smell of an old book!