JOIN USNothing can be more disheartening to a book lover than seeing a bookshop shutdown or a loving bookshop owner passing away leaving behind a mountain of memories, as it happened with the demise of T S Shanbhag (Premier, which sadly shutdown in 2009), P U Srinivasan (PuVyaSri or bookseller Srinivasan) and, more recently, Suresh Shah (Sapna). Even more distressing was the news of a library going up in smoke, literally, in Mysore.
I have been close to books and a library all my life, a quintessential bookworm to be frank. As a toddler in Bangalore, I remember my Appa’s small study area housing a mini-library of sorts. There were books of all sizes and shapes, stockpiled, not in any particular order, I learnt later, but according to its owner’s idiosyncrasies. Later in school, my class was the closest to the library and in college, the library was my favourite place to rejuvenate and relax, and, at times, nurse my heartburns. The magnificent public library building in Cubbon Park was the go-to place for minor research work.
As we shifted abroad, the family library was of our baggage. It took a lot of time to first locate all of them, some forgotten in the toilet, a few under the mattress, not because of its content material, I can assure you, but due to sheer lack of will to keep them back at their designated places, and a few paperbacks long forgotten in coat pockets.
Once assembled in the hall like a mini mountain, they were first dusted, the older ones wrapped and the odd dog-eared copy treated more delicately to extend its proverbial shelf life. They were then turned into pyramids depending on their sizes before placing them in cartons and packing them with reams of duct tape.
At the airport, it was not Mamma’s hand luggage, with the family ‘heirloom’ in it, which was the centre of all the care and attention, but the cartons of books. Over the years, the size and weight of the consignments gradually increased. But the eye for detail in packing and unpacking remains the same.
At times, Amma has grudgingly agreed to leave behind her favourite cooking ingredients (sambar items in particularly) to let us take our books without having to pay for excess baggage. Now, the family has spread itself and settled in different parts of the world and with our prime possessions— the books.
Looking at my favourite Archie comics in the corner on my cluttered desk, in faraway Toronto, I eagerly await to visit Syed Ishaq’s new library in Mysore, the next time I’m back home.