Ah, how I love the smell of books in the morning, evening, afternoon and night. Such an ingeniously simple yet profound invention that irrevocably changed the tenor and tempo of civilization. Sacred temples they are where culture is transmitted from one generation to the next. Civilization itself resides within these hallowed portals, echoing through the halls of the generations.
Can modern electronic gadgetry with all its distracting tomfoolery ever hope to rival the beloved reverence I feel for ancient old papyrus? Can bits and bytes ever replicate the magic in the texture of pages, their thickness, color, fonts, the fascinating variety of binding styles, some books held together only with glue, some with pages stitched into little bundles glued to each other. The publisher’s page with all it’s little tidbits of interesting information, ISBN numbers, classification codes, country of printing, which is the first thing one looks for when opening a book. Faraway places like Singapore, USA, UK, Belgium, whose scent wafts through the paper. The publisher’s offices which all seem to be in New York, London, Paris, Toronto, Melbourne and Singapore. Are they all in the same buildings?
The crushing march of technology is well and good as long as it doesn’t hoodwink us with innovations which add some value but also subtract from it in important ways. Take the latest wave of e-readers and tablet computers which are flooding the market, threatening to eradicate the venerable printed book from the face of the earth, with tall claims of environment friendliness.
While only a Luddite would deny their advantages over the printed form, what about their environmental impact with their metric tons of non-biodegradable plastic and cardboard packaging, chips and circuitry requiring silicon and other metals to be mined from the earth’s bowels? What of the need to power the blasted devices by electricity from hydroelectric plants fed by ecologically disastrous dams, and coal-fired plants that steam up the planet with little clue or concern for long-term ecological balance? These devices for all the brouhaha they generate are pretty much useless without juice, more so than a roll of toilet paper which can, excuse the phrase, at least be used to wipe away the remnants of last night’s dinner.
You can’t share these accursed e-books either, like you can physical books, which can be a blessing as well as a curse. Take my beloved, tattered, profusely underlined copy of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos, which Das uncle purported to borrow three years ago. I am still hoping he will have the decency to return it, albeit with diminishing certitude with each passing year. The suave thief.
And just how does one smell a darn e-book? Or underline and annotate those mind-shattering passages in a way that is transmittable from one owner to the next? Indeed how sad is it that e-books can only have one owner? That scrawls in the margin can’t be transmitted from owner to owner with quite the same personality? Yes, yes, I know that technology will come up with its own contraptions to mimic these experiences. But at the end of the day, bits and bytes can only approximate the full bodied experience of cellulose fibers.
Books also don’t break when dropped, and make a good press for fossilizing silly infantile ornaments like the leaf with which I tickled Krishnaswamy’s ear in class and caused him to be the recipient of a sound thrashing from sadist Ghorpade Sir, or the flower which got sickly Chandrapal to sneeze during History class and get slapped by Mehta “cadaver” Sir’s old, gnarly, incredibly painful palm, harmonics from which traumatic event are resonating in his ear till the present day.
And the clincher - you can’t play book cricket with Kindles and iPads in that grand theatre of tedium, Satpute Sir’s Science class, where many a tender brain has been anesthetized forever to the beauties of science, can you, eh, eh?
Ramu found himself thus shaking poor bewildered Somu violently awake from a rather long and blissfully lethargic slumber under the gigantic leafy umbrella of a venerable banyan tree in the neighborhood Shivaji park. (All, and I mean all, public monuments, roads, schools and colleges in Shivajinagar tended to be named after Shivaji, the buccaneering Maratha warrior king, never mind the resulting disorientation amongst the citizenry).
Ramu tended to get carried away with his philosophical, wildly rambling reveries sometimes, lurching from one thought to another like an orangutan in a liquor store. He was always being castigated by teachers for his impudence in asking uncomfortable questions they seldom had an answer to. Such as why public libraries were relegated to the status of second last on the state’s fiscal priority list, just above public toilets? This appalling, ghastly factoid which Ramu happened to come across in the greasy Shivajinagar Times sheet, which his samosas had been wrapped in, so enraged him that he felt compelled to vent his anger on the nearest available object. That unfortunate object happened to be Somu who was brought crashing down to earth from his blithe fantasy world where he was on the verge of hitting the winning runs as captain of the school cricket team in the finals of the prestigious Under-10 Inter-State Cup Cricket tournament. Sadly, that thrilling fantasy vaporized microseconds before actualization and Somu was left silently seething and fuming at this cruel denial.
At that precise instant, an electric impulse travelled at the speed of light down Ramu’s extraordinarily dense neural tracts connecting two disparate thoughts that had been milling about aimlessly until then to create the germ of an idea.
Shivajinagar Public Library (SPL) and Shivajinagar’s economy. The former, a ramshackle, musty, wretched looking structure whose last coat of paint dated back to the heady days of Indian independence, a place more forgotten than the ancient Indus valley civilization, serving as asylum for geriatrics, refuge for truants from school, blissful sanctuary from the frenetic machinations of the external world. The latter, a ramshackle, musty, wretched system whose last boom predated any known cultural or historical memory in the oldest geriatric minds of Shivajinagar, also coincidentally serving as asylum for geriatrics, refuge for truants from civilization, blissful sanctuary from the frenetic machinations of the external world.
Libraries ought to be the soul of a community, a sacred temple for books, a place where the eternal flame of culture and civilization lives and breathes. Breathing the foul musty air of the SPL, however, was fraught with acute respiratory danger. It struck Ramu that how a community treats its libraries is also a telling comment on the intellectual health of the community itself.
His idea thus was, to put a spin on the old adage, to revive two birds with one breath. Allow private companies and philanthropists to subtly advertise in the library. Allow them to sponsor bookmarks, writing competitions, reading sessions of famous books. Allow computer manufacturers to sponsor the computer section. It would be an excellent advertisement for their hardware and all for a good cause, which would only burnish their corporate image. The payoff for advertisers would be a highly targeted intellectual audience for products like books, stationery, magazines, newspapers, even, lord almighty, e-readers and tablets. Philanthropists or corporations could have the library named after themselves in return for lifelong patronage for a fixed annual sum, adjustable for inflation. This would resuscitate not only the library but also the moribund economy which would get a boost if targeted advertising resulted in an increase in consumption.
Ramu was not only smart enough to realize that he had hit upon a workable idea, but also knew how to make it work. For he knew that even the most brilliant idea sans implementation strategies was as worthless as a Shivajinagar Municipal Bond. The ace up his sleeve was the redoubtable Somu, a networking magician, capable of conjuring up connections from thin air.
Ramu planned the operation in his customary meticulous detail, while keeping Somu outwardly engaged so as to not bruise his ego. His implementation strategy was two-pronged, just like his idea. One - enlist the support of weighty and influential stakeholders such as Mr. Sahasrabuddhe, the librarian, Mr. SMS Namboodiripad their ancient school principal, N. Shyam, editor of the local Shivajinagar Times, Tichkule the local corporator who would have to get permission from the White kurtas and saris in the Ministry of Culture to implement such a scheme. Ah, the Ministry of Culture. Won’t do a damn thing to promote culture, but will throw every roadblock at it’s disposal to prevent private citizenry from advancing it’s cause. Two - get feelers from private corporations and wealthy individuals on their level of interest in the scheme. Finally, get the two together via a media campaign that struck some local chord, or nerve. It was a wholly fortuitous coincidence that municipal elections were just around the corner, but one Ramu would nevertheless exploit to the hilt.
Somu who was well versed in the art of gastronomic persuasion, spent all his pocket money on samosas from a local Haldiram eatery to create the proper atmosphere for discussions. While Ramu’s arguments for the library were wholly convincing from a rational point of view, sadly, that is not how the machinations of administration functioned. More reptilian motivations had to be tapped into. Tichkule, who was a bit of a megalomaniac, was fed not only samosas, but also the grandiose vision of a bust of himself gracing the halls of the library, as reward for his invaluable services towards facilitating the deal. Posterity beckoned, legacy loomed large, and elections were around the garbage strewn street corner. Tichkule became a fierce advocate of the library renovation project. The media coverage was icing on the cake and Tichkule’s floundering political star had a sudden meteoric rise.
Ramu’s plan was a roaring success. The library was renovated and became a gleaming, sparkling symbol of Shivajinagar’s cultural and economic revival. Word spread near and far about this diamond in a trash can. Media coverage exploded, if only fleetingly. Public interest mushroomed not only in Shivajinagar, but well beyond. The library became a model of public-private-partnership for other towns and cities.
Tickled pink by their success, and up to their ears with Mehta Sir’s soporific droning about the Uprising of 1857, Ramu and Somu quietly slipped out of class, and headed to the newly rechristened Tata Imperial library.
To their great shock, awe and consternation, they discovered SMS Namboodiripad, the school principal, comfortably ensconced in a plush chair, enjoying the brisk air conditioning, thumbing through a copy of ‘How to Discipline Truant Children’ by Albert Cane. Before his eyes could meet theirs, they beat a hasty retreat.