Apt, then
that the
image
that one
focuses on today
is a view
of books
On this,
the eve of Guru Purnima
A heritage
library,
personal.
The
ancestor who peopled
these
antique shelves
with
thinkers, healers, cartographers, poets, playwrights
and their
fancies’ elves
Kick-started
one’s waking being
to the ways
of Nature, humankind
Crumbling
pages,
weevil-devoured
From dust
to dust
proved in
instant shards
of
hard-bound litter
Sunning out
the pages
-for not
too long
lest the
binding melts
lest the
voltaic intensity
of monsoon
storms
make short
shrift
of
encyclopediae,
gazettes,
and solemn
law books all in a row
-Even the
world’s first Oriya dictionary
penned by a
relative of long ago.
Back into
shelves,
solar-showered
Suryanarayana’s
trove
and more
Armies of
‘modern’ medicine,
Of modern
political thought
Treatises
on astrology, history, wildlife, art
Religion
was a later shoo-in
One cut
one’s teeth
on
Shakespearean delights
with Henry
Irving’s complete works
and an
exhaustive microcosm of miniatures
treasured,
gem-like.
The glow-worms
of
brilliant minds.
He must’ve
liked Tennyson
there’s the
complete works
and there’s
the complete works
that
explains one’s partiality to alliteration
in the days
of Wright and elocution,
a win-win
situation
at least.
Though one
was leafing through Emily’s works
rescued
from the stocks
of Sunday
Daryaganj roadside strews
Looking for
non-pedestrian verse
to toss
into one’s stew
with eye of
sophomore, the admission of Shrew:
and waltz
into hallowed portals
to be
interviewed to read some more at SSC
from
nineteen ninety to ninety-three
-Three
glorious years studying drama, poetry, prose,
Graduated
with honours from Saint Stephen’s, Delhi
Gorged on
samosas, burgers, gulab jamuns and neembu paani
Fuel to
interpret those fort-bound tomes
and tea.
A book or
few
made it to New
Delhi
Talisman-like,
treasured
in
book-cases from Lutyen’s to Gurgaon and Lutyen’s and back:
from a
series of literary works; the ubiquitous Tennyson;
the
manufacture of syrups and such-like.
In years
past
we’ve
striven to preserve
the
library,
keep the
books in condition
-Shaking
off pests,
lining
shelves
through our
south-bound homeward-bound
summer,
winter and other vacations
-enlisting
guests
if they
were close enough and eager
to be a
part of the ongoing mission
to save
those volumes.
Some were
brittle, some had stamps,
signatures
and labels too
With bated
breath, one scours type-sets for handwritten notings (rare)
Over the
years, we learnt a trick or two:
Dried
tobacco leaves
are the
best repellents
(of
insects, rodents, reptiles, even)
Interested
homo sapiens
do
gravitate and peer
Sometimes
startled by the snakeskin veneer
of those
dehydrated arboreal placements
Smoking?
You’re joking!
Present-day
publishers and authors
have been
transiting into gaps
created
by the
churn.
Our own
writings (my father’s book on electoral reforms; my solo works of fiction,
non-fiction, poetry and miscellany; my grandma’s recipe book)
and books
by people we know
-the intelligentsia
of
twenty-first century India
and of
distant shores
The
Constituent Assembly Debates,
the Madras
Law Journals
Cookbooks, magazines,
mores and journals
-Shikaar
tales, poetry, poultry
One’s packs
of tarot decks
and tarot
guides
Books of
mystery, of adventure: Childrens’ literature
And the
comely Victorian romance or two
What you
see in the picture
could well
be a series,
a close-up
of volumes
placed
on
paper-lined shelves
Which have,
on occasion,
made for
equally gripping reading
-a
startling head-line from a much-archived newspaper
Those
glossy old calendars
and rolls
of brown paper
have found
berths
on this
track (stay away, weevils, we will be back
to rock
you)
As the
digital age
makes its
advances
And one
often sits at a laptop
surrounded
by these depicted pages
-the
library of my ancestor,
The
Zamindar-Rajah of Kurupam,
One mulls
over
commending
selections
to electronic
media….
Once-in-a-cyclone,
whimsically
crafting
one’s magna
opera
of recycled
handmade lib. souvenirs
In some
instances
Republication
could regale the masses
-dispatched
straight from the rural fort.
As we
concern ourselves
with more
haute
collections
of reading matter
in the
nation’s present-day capital,
the Delhi
NCR, Gurugram
At my
sibling’s,
titles for
children, young adults,
voracious
readers. (And writers!)
Coffee-table
books, biographies,
And, of
course,
The cases
of the Supreme Court
which, by
now,
are all
online,
and free
Though
black-and-red volumes
line my
urban walls
A bunch of
cedar pencils
and cloves
keep silver-fish at bay
Zoom
conferences, video calls
Visions
surface in pools of lamp-light
In a zoom-in,
you’re transported
to the
original spot
that evoked
the
representation.
By V.
Shruti Devi
1 comment:
Purely written
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