It
We all have fond memories of particular places. They are just impossible to forget. We carry them with us, stored in a small cupboard of old souvenirs, residing quietly in a corner of our subconscious. They leave tangible impressions on our psyche.
As we reminisce on them through the odd ephemeral thought (which comes suddenly, without warning), the sensation of comfort and coziness fills our core, and the smells and sounds associated with the respected site come to life. They are as real as the space right in front of us, and as vivid as the reality we are living in.
We experience a longing to go back to those days; it could be some vacation we took, a town/city we lived in, or someone’s home we frequented. We may miss the security of home, the comforts of childhood, or the love of someone who has passed.
The coziest place I ever knew has to be the office in the old house where I spent most of my early days. When I say old, take my word for it (it was built in1962 and eventually brought down in 2001).
It had numerous mounting almirahs, the ones we run into when visiting an advocate’s lodging, filled with hardbacks that are (almost) never read. It also contained a huge, and I mean leviathan center table with solid wooden chairs, fit to host the Godfather’s crew. There were other fixtures- a few cabinets encased in the wall, and a comfortable snuggly blue sofa.
It may not seem like much, but for a little one, it was massive. Apart from Dada’s and Papa’s law tomes, there were novels, dictionaries and non-fiction material, belonging to Manjhle Papa, my father’s younger sibling.
The room was the location of my very first library (a small one, but still..). Slowly I got myself a series of beautifully illustrated books on general knowledge in the format of 100 questions and answers- on weather, space, dinosaurs and so on. Then there were Soviet books –by Mir and Raduga Publications- translated into Hindi and English that my Phuphaji lent to me for reading; but they never found their way back.
The room on top of the office was (obviously) its replica. The space was also very dear to me. After we shifted to the first floor, I set up my second library there. Come to think of it, I have had libraries in all the settings I have called home. But the specimen in the office was the very first one.
I loved to read on the blue sofa in the office. I have distinct memories of some sound sleep on the unit. For some reason, I felt calm and safe there. The lights in the dwelling were not obtrusive in any way. It was also secluded from the rest of the house, opening towards an expanse filled with rubble, debris and overgrowth (unused and abandoned space one finds in all old campuses).
I dream of the office a lot; it’s the residence of my most recurrent reveries. It looks vastly different in each instance. Every so often we are preparing to leave the house (which we did in 2000, perhaps) but there is some while before all the stuff has been moved out. Occasionally the building is partly demolished but we are still living there. Probably, a part of me wants to cling to my boyhood.
The office is always bloated and vastly rich in those dreams. At each occurrence there is a different collection of works in there, and at every stint it is superbly impressive. In one version, it had an assemblage of encyclopedias (the younger ones must not know about these behemoth volumes of knowledge and wonder, but my generation did). Another version contained a complete pack, some 43 volumes of an epic fiction.
If this was not a treasure, I don’t know what must be.
Him
At every term, the compilation was owned by Manjhle Papa. His store of books had such a great imprint on me that the treasures of the office always came in conjunction to him.
His collection was exceedingly diverse. He had about 6-7 dictionaries. There was a thesaurus, an advanced learner’s, a dictionary of idioms and many more I can’t remember. There was a double volume Anna Karenina lying about, as was a War and Peace (both written by Leo Tolstoy, a masterful storyteller). There was little fiction (apart from the ones already mentioned) in his assortment.
The Kareninas were specimens of wonder to me (owing to their thickness, I mused how a person could manage to read them cover-to-cover). Then there was a deluge of material on history. Manjhle Papa was a history graduate and loved the discipline. Most of those titles were well read, with content highlighted and underlined, and notes made in the margins for future reference.
The whole collection was available to me when we shifted to flats in the same apartment (residence no 3) (us in 203, his family in 603). But the collection didn’t seem as vast in its new accommodation. The office (residence no 1) had seemed colossal. While the study in our next abode in J.D. Mishra Path (residence no 2) had felt smaller than its predecessor; 603 seemed almost manageable.
I am sure the archive improved, but I grew as well. My perspective changed. What had previously seemed an ocean now appeared as I mentioned, manageable.
The appreciation and gratitude we have as youngsters subsides as we age. We come to realize the cost of those thick volumes, own a few ourselves, and unnecessarily try to objectify everything. As a society we are getting more and more materialistic, mere hoarders who don’t realize the value of their catch. We have lost the ability to enjoy the things we possess.
Books were expensive, compared to people’s incomes, when I was small. Manjhle Papa spent a lot on them, with his limited earnings. He prioritized them over some other things.
In the new world order, all of us consume more than we can digest. In his period, knowledge was not as accessible. One had to buy books, or examine them in libraries. Scholars like him spent a lifespan attaining elusive knowledge. It was their gold, their fortune.
It is really apparent to me where I got the reading bug from.
His books were almost always too advanced for me. But as I could always access them, it felt like they were my belongings. Their owner also made me feel that way.
The single paperback I attempted to read from the deluge of titles was War and Peace, which turned out to be a difficult reading (small font and uncountable characters). By the stage I was old enough to read his stuff; I had enough of my own titles to get through. But they were always there for my use.
Manjhle Papa didn’t only do books, he also did newspapers (he was a Journalist). He unfailingly struggled to read them all. He amassed the whole week’s quota of 3 different newspapers and read all he could in the weekend. Again, here too he underlined, marked, and made little notes in the margins to get the most out of the articles.
He had a dedicated study in all of his dwellings. They were temples of wisdom I spent so much time in, with a person who loved me like his own son. Last year, he passed away. It will take me a long time to get used to the idea.
It’s difficult to believe he is no longer reading and ravaging his beloved newspapers (but I am ravaging mine; as I continue his legacy).
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