This, that, and all between.
Our fourth copy of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel (De)Foe. This, 1943 editon, is from Odhams Press, London which has original leather binding, is gilded and has litho illustrations. The earlier one, which is cloth bound in red (without jacket), is a 1948 edition from Thomas Nelson, Edinburgh. Besides these precious ones, we have one each from our college time which are India editions from the early seventies. Just like Crusoe, I too lost my way, not on sea but in Tibet.
This is the Eid gift I got last night, my Eidhi. As a practice Eidhi is offered by an elder to the younger lot however, this was the other way round. My daughter Chandni Arora Singh brought it for me. Proud of you that you picked it for me knowing fully well that both of us will cry for the rest of the evening reading even the first few lines. I don’t remember if we wished each other, we did hug to the brink of breaking down. Avoiding eye contact, we let the book lie on the table wrapped and sealed in its cellophane cover as if hundreds of lives were throbbing under the rubble of what were once happy warm homes. Sipping my drink and feeling uneasy at the very thought that I had still not opened it I stole glances at its cover illustrations and was traumatised by the copperish-bronze title as if souls trapped in the book were blazing a mirror in my eyes. I wanted to start reading it but didn’t have the guts to open it. I didn’t have the strength. I felt guilty, and almost responsible for the barbaric treatment to a people, to a quam over the last six months in particular and over the last seven decades. I have only managed to read the first Letter since last night. Sorry, I can’t read any to you. After this do you want me to say Eid…. Gurgaon, 31 March 2025
Father died at home, in his house
looking himself in the mirror;
guiding the razor upside-down on his thin face,
pulling wrinkled skin over shrunken cheekbones,
making faces while shaving; grinning,
upsetting, teasing, and taunting the mirror,
Just then a heart-attack took him in minutes;
And the Mirror captured his soul.
The Mirror was fixed on the wall
facing the kitchen, where mother worked.
She kept her distance from the mirror,
feeling sad and scared of looking in it –
finally, covering it with a towel that father used.
Father owned the house where he died.
‘Krishna Kutir’, the house was named
after my mother, who sold it ten years later
and passed the money to his heirs.
No Father, No House. No Mirror. All gone.
A lot more went with it, my innocence, my youth.
We all grew up in it – a sister, two brothers,
mother, father – and the house itself,
which had come by chance, really.
Father had no money to buy it.
He would say. ‘I was lucky’. Yes, he was.
Indeed, lucky for an orphan and a refugee
to own a house in the capital.
For sure, those days he was lucky,
and happy too, having got a raise in salary.
He also won two lotteries in six months.
First, a ‘lucky draw’ where his name was picked
and a small flat allotted to him for small money.
Second, a ‘cash prize’ for writing a slogan
for a cigarette brand of the working class.
He used the money to part-pay the flat.
Would you believe, there was a time
when one was rewarded to smoke!
Very Lucky!
Like his income, the house too was
low income. LIG Flat they called it.
Dad was proud, ‘I made it like a bee,’
he once told me looking into the mirror.
He saved for it, every paisa he could
like a bee secreting to make a hive –
cutting on his smokes, eats, and bus fare;
cycling to work eight miles one way.
Mother sold the house as it had her name.
The mirror went with the house.
Outside the house, there was a name plate
faded, nailed to the wall, having survived
forty years of elements, envy, and evil-eye.
When Ma moved, father stayed behind
in his house. He didn’t move, he couldn’t.
His soul had been seized by the Mirror.
Not everything died with father, a lot survived.
His dreams, his books, his letters, his diaries
and the Mirror on the soiled verandah wall
from which his face followed us everywhere.
Ma brought all she could, tears & trauma in tow
and the fading nameplate, ‘Krishna Kutir’.
I, for one, couldn’t unhook the Mirror
Father held it tight.
— R, March 27, 2024
At the end of this fascinating book there is an announcement for an Essay Competition with a prize money of Rs 100, Rs 50, and Rs 25 each for the students of classes 8, 9, and 10. There is also a coupon in the book which is to be filled by the student and signed by the school Principal confirming that the 150 words essay is written by the student himself and no one else. The last date for submission of essays is 15 November 1933 and the announcement of winners of the competition is scheduled for 1st January 1934 in Madras.
Don’t you think way back then the schools, students, teachers, and the publishers were so much better! To keep the interest of students in poetry, or for that matter reading itself, was so important to them that a princely sum of Rs. 100 was given as the First Prize simply to understand and interpret poetry. Mind you this is in the 1930s when the salary of an English teacher in a school was all of Rs. 22 per month. This is the period when schools or education was managed and funded at community level only. As per Census figures of 1931 we had 22,86,411 Secondary Schools in India with an overall literacy rate of 9.5% only.
Published in 1933, The Golden Book of English Poetry, Selected and Annotated by N. Kandaswamy Pillai, the anthology was a part of curriculum for students of schools in Madras Presidency. The anthology has poems from 58 poets as diverse as Lord Macaulay to John Keats. At the head of each poem is a brief note on the author and a line or two of comments. At the end of the poems there are Notes, ‘to words, phrases and terms unfamiliar to students’. The book also has 11 ballads. The Editor in his preface says, “Tennyson and Victorians have been excluded…” in a hope to bring out a companion volume to this. Published by The House of Knowledge, Tanjore the book doesn’t mention its price or, maybe a page is missing from this antiquarian volume (I love their colophon). This well preserved copy, that I recently bought from a dealer, was originally owned by one J. S. Sowmianarayanan possibly a student or even a teacher.
For the times that we are living in, I find the lines of this song by James Shirley most appropriate:
Some men with swords may reap the field,
James Shirley
And plant fresh laurels where they kill;
But their strong nerves at last must yield.
They tame but one another still :
Early or late
They stoop to fate,
And must give up their murmuring breath,
When they, pale captives, creep to death.
Having picked up eight titles for Ma from a Hindi publishers’ stall I realised it would not be possible for me to carry them in my two hands or lug them on the shoulders as all three were overbooked. I had already bought 23 books. (This is one event and place where I splurge and don’t feel guilty.) As the latest lot of books had been paid for, I didn’t want to disappoint the publisher by returning them. The lady, the publisher that is, was standing right next to me and had figured out my dilemma. She had not only helped me select some titles but was gracious to introduce me to an author and ask her to sign a copy for Ma. Looking at me she said, ‘you could leave the books here for now and pick them up as you are leaving’.
Was Jesus talking about a visit to the book fair when he said, “To carry one’s own cross”!
The lady’s offer was some relief but not the solution to my problem. This was an unplanned and unscheduled visit to the Book Fair as I happened to be in Mandi House for some work. Our driver was absent yesterday who normally doubles up as an enthusiastic visitor to the Mela with me. This time around I had to find a way to offer a sacrifice for the obsession.
At subsequent stalls I enquired if they would dispatch the books to my address if I paid them upfront. The answer was an emphatic No with the head bent down unable to face the reader. At many other stalls too my request was turned down. Brozo and Ola services wanted the books to be brought outside to the gate. Desperate, I was cursing the Mela and the uncouth publishers; a few of them claiming to be anti e-commerce platforms.
I sighed, the good old times were great, publishers were eager to book orders and dispatch later; 30% discount and no postage was the done thing. During the 80s Jhalli Waalas and Collies roamed around the Fair with their cane baskets ready to transfer the booty to any available transport outside the Maidan. Tea and snacks stalls lined up next to Hansdhwani Theatre and the Lake were always helpful in storing the bulging bags of books. Alas, so much is lost with time including the humble cup of regular kadak chai. There is not a stall around the halls which sells strong desi chai.
Wednesday was an easy day for the mela. Bereft of crowd publishers were sitting and yawning. The English paperback churners were, as usual, busy with wannabes to be seen with a certain author. Other than Hindi, other Indian languages were missing, however, what was selling was the magic of Lord Ram. Illustrated colourful volumes on every conceivable fraction of his life and times were stacked up at every tenth stall. There was one that was selling “Bolti Ramayan“, playing dohas from Charitmanas. Marigold garlands and jamun leaves adorned some stalls – incense was burning in front of a title in one of the stalls and a battalion of salesmen were out to lead you to the “spiritual path” with their books. Strangely, missionaries were conspicuous in their absence though what one found in abundance were authors, particularly of the genre called poetry.
Many a reading sessions and ‘meet the author’ events were happening with little audience paying attention to them. Forget the book, a selfie with the author is more important. The best attraction for the selfie-loving-lot were the Arabs and the Sheikhs at Saudi Arabia pavilion. There was a long queue of young and old Indians lined up at the large SA pavilion waiting to take a selfie with the white abaya-wearing Arabs smiling in their chequered red keffiyeh. Give me one reason why someone should be taking a selfie with a group of unknown Arabs, especially knowing well that they don’t even support the Palestinian cause any more. On the other side of their stall I realised ‘Dates were the Baits’. BTW the Arab nation is the partner country in this year’s fair.
Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR), the nodal body to document history in the country has put up a large pavilion with the theme ‘Jammu, Kashmir & Ladakh Through the Ages: A Visual Narratives of Communities and Linkages’, which, not surprisingly, has very little space for Islamic or Buddhist heritage of the region. Models of shikaras over a dry lake welcome the visitors. Agar firdaus bar ru-ye zamin ast – where is it I ask?
I wish the NBT had distributed free copies of the Constitution of India to the visitors instead of spending money planting hordes of selfie points with the mahamahim showing a copy of the Constitution. I hope and pray that the people of this great nation preserve and defend the sacrosanct text behind the black cover. There was no avoiding the Orwellian face which was everywhere together with the signs that said, आप निगरानी में हैं .
However tiring and frustrating, so what if book prices are going through the roof, and who cares if quality international publishers are missing; the mela is a mast place to spend a couple of days at the beginning of spring. One ends up bumping into old friends and getting nostalgic about that book fair where we had dreamt of Pushkin, Chekhov, and Nabokov, where we had recited Sylvia Plath, Ezra Pound, Harper Lee and Dostoevsky; where we sang of peace and “Imagine all the people” was our anthem. Ah!
For me, the find of this mela was Promenade Books, an independent publisher of classic literature who have chosen to bring back books that are scarce or out of print. A young Abhay Panwar at its helm is an all-in-one machine doing everything for his nascent publishing house, all by himself. Impressed not only by his choice of titles but also by the cover designs and the production quality I spoke to the charming lad at length. A dropout from St. Stephen’s Delhi, Abhay is almost serving a notice to publishers big and small with his quality and pricing. The enthusiastic and well-read young man explains in detail about each title/author he has produced. Wishing you all the luck Abhay. Best wishes till we meet in the next Fair.
Ankahi. Unsaid. 
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