Parting with books

While cleaning my bookshelf and sorting out the titles now destined to reach a library, I came across several books I had referred to during the time I wrote my first book. They accompanied me for years before I was forced to part with them.

I picked them up one by one. Dusted them lovingly. Turned them over, read the titles and the authors’ names closely. Before they got tossed over to a heap from where they got packed into bags.
It was not easy to let go of things you kept dear for months and years. Stuff you took pride in possessing.

Nothing pleases bibliophiles more than the books they have collected over the years.

Yes, it pained when you saw books silently pleading with you not to give them away.

It also pains you when books complain of neglect and indifference.

There is a beautiful poem on kitaben or books by legendary filmmaker-poet Gulzar. Capturing the desultory look the books give while peeping from behind the glass cases, the poem opens: “Kitaben jhankti hain bund almari ke sheeshon se (Books peep out from behind glass cases of a closed almirah).

This is one of the favourite poems of my middle daughter Sara. She often recites it when she wants to remind me that my books complain about the neglect they suffer. “Why did you buy and bring them home when you couldn’t find time to read them,” Sara once asked.

Well, it is difficult to reply why does one buy books. It is almost impossible to explain to the Gen Z why one loves books. Especially printed books.

There are many reasons for some people loving books. And when I say books, I mean printed books, not their digital avatar which are fast replacing the printed ones. There is a beautiful word in Urdu called lams. Its rough translation is touch. But touch does not convey the meaning and the message convincingly. You keep the book in your lap, on your chest or clutch it in your hands. Then you open it, turn the pages. Read them. At home, in the office, in local trains or inside aeroplanes.

My generation of readers imitated their elders when we touched our lips before we opened the pages of a book. Like banias counted wads of currency notes. I grew up watching a bunia in my Bihar village wetting his fingers with beads of perspiration on his forehead before he counted currency notes.

Talking of currency notes and wealth reminds me of a comment a relative once made. “Had you not spent so much of your earnings on books, you would have been a rich man,” the relative said.

It seemed like an arrow piercing my soul. How could someone be so insensitive to a person who loves books like he loves his life?

Letting go some of my books sent me down memory lane. Many of them moved with me, from city to city, mohalla to mohalla and house to house.
While packing them in bags to be carted away to their new home, a library in another city, my thoughts took me to the one-room rented accommodation at Julena near Jamia Millia Islamia in Delhi 30 years ago.

On a day in September 1995, as today, I was faced with a big dilemma. While packing my bags before I took the Golden Temple train to Mumbai, I had to decide to leave behind some of my dear books I had possessed for months.

Since I didn’t have a fixed address in Mumbai and was on an uncertain journey, a journey not even my parents were aware of, I wanted to travel light. Still many books that I didn’t want to part with filled a carton.

So, with a bag containing a few pairs of clothes and a carton carrying books, I landed at Bombay Central station one morning in September 1995.

Looking for the address of a friend’s friend in a large city was like finding a needle in a haystack. Hoping trains, changing buses and taxis, I reached a building in Versova in Andheri West. Only to discover that the man I was referred to by the friend in Delhi had left for the Gulf a week before. Then I fished out address of another person in Mahim my Delhi friend had suggested I meet. But before I began looking for this new address, I wanted to keep the heavy carton of books somewhere safely at least for a night.

The 1992 communal riots and the 1993 serial blasts had divided the two communities like never before.The city which had once prided itself in its cosmopolitanism had found itself segregated.

Neighbours had become strangers. Nobody trusted anybody.

So, it was difficult to find a person who could trust this boy and keep his carton for a night. Reading books about society and human behaviour had taught me that the poor could be trusted more than the rich in such situations. It is not that the rich are devoid of kindness. But their wealth, name and fame prevent them from engaging with strangers easily. And I was a total stranger.

So I approached the hut of a security guard at a construction site in Versova. I told the middle-aged man that I had arrived from Delhi and was desperately looking for an address where I was supposed to stay temporarily. I pleaded with him to keep the carton of books, my beloved books for just 24 hours. I told him to open the carton if he had any doubt about what it contained. The man was a bit hesitant.

Perhaps a lot of thoughts played in his mind. What if there was a contraband, a parcel of banned stuff? While he seemed lost in thoughts, I saw his wife sympathising with my situation. She nodded to her husband and the carton which I had carried all the way from Delhi found a temporary in the poor couple’s impoverished hut. I fetched it the next day.

Books provide you pleasures in different ways. They become your friends, your consorts. They accompany you when you need someone’s company the most. They keep you engaged and busy. And occupied.

I feel sorry for those who say they do not have time to read books. Successful people read books. Read biographies or autobiographies of successful CEOs, statesmen and women, military strategists and world leaders. Most of them have been book lovers. And voracious readers.

So, if you are forced to part with some of your books because you have run out of space in your home, you do mourn. You lament. Like you do at sudden separation from your dear ones.

I have sent off some of my books. On an uncertain journey. Though I have been promised they will be take care of well, I do not know the fate that awaits them. I am not sure if I will ever meet them again. Will they be kept well? Will some people benefit from them? Or will they finally reach the doorstep of a raddiwala, a scrap dealer to shroud samosas?

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