FROM THE OLD BOOK SHOP series I

A bibliophile's heart lies in OLD BOOK SHOP. As the number of serious reader declines, the classics become less affordable. Its indirectly proportional, I learned. During my visits to various cities on a holiday, I always find some time to visit low-profile, shabbily decorated old book shops situated at rather awkward places away from the tourist destinations. And believe in me, I am and I will be rewarded at all such visits. The books I have with me now is surely a book-borrower's (who never return books after finishing them) envy. You will be surprised to know the price I paid for each of them. Many of them are one-twentieth of the recent price but yes, with a bit of compromise (dust filled, rotten covers, defaced pages are only a few of them to enjoy). If you are eager to know the names of my innumerable second wives, I will not deprive you.

1. VAN GOGH Life and Work by Dieter Beaujean published by konemann from bonner strasse, Cologne. The English translation was published in 2000 and has 96 pages in total with an excellent collection of Vincent's drawings in colour. Its a book from a  series called 'art in hand' and is a significant reading for those  not from the field of art. The chapters chosen are so dedicated and scientifically laid down one after the other that a single read will provide you with the basics of Van Gog's life. 'Encounter with impressionism' and 'What makes Van Gogh' are the two chapters which employ scientific views and rationality in explaining the science and arts of  this ill-fated master painter. When you are buying an art book filled with paintings the pages of the book must be of good quality glossy art paper to reflect the true value of the pictures. This book though a small one fulfills this criteria. It contains some rare pieces of art not much seen in other costly VanGogh books like, line drawing of 'Dr Gatchet in death bed' (1890), Etching of 'Dr Gatchet' (1890), 'Iris' (1889) and a half -page print of 'Potato eaters' (1885) which is of no less importance than VanGogh's 'Sunflower'. 'Potato eaters' reflect Van Gogh's darkest moments of thought and is to me the penultimate drawing which one must appreciate in understanding how different he was from others. His charcoal sketch 'The long walk (Avenue) (1874) is one such important inclusion away from his oil colours.

2. TRIO by W. Somerset Maugham is a collection of three stories brought out by William Heinemann Ltd. The three stories are 'The Verger', 'Mr Know-all' and 'Sanatorium'. Mere luck brought me a first edition of this book published in1950. This 145-page book contains three short stories together with their screen plays. One must start with the stories ending with the film-script. Maugham's interplay of free flowing words, his subtle analysis of human behaviour  and  when these two turns into a film, is a thing to note in this book. Those who have a fascination for good films and for those who appreciate the value of a good script when at par with a good literature, this book is a God's gift. I came to know from this book that Maugham also wrote cinema scripts together with R.C.Sherriff and Noel Langley in those days.

3. LANDMARKS OF  THE WORLD'S ART is one series of book which we all had dreamed of  owning since our adolescent days. It is a costly book in hardcover and is meant for a library and never to be a part of personal collection from my economical stature. Its an excellent, authentic book containing verified data from history. It is published by Paul Hamlyn, London. Presently this second hand old book is selling at a price of approximately Rs 1100 (Indian currency) from Antiqbook. I remember buying this book at Rs 100 in 2006 from an old book shop at Gariahata at Calcutta. One of the books in this series 'THE ORIENTAL WORLD' is written by two knowledgeable persons Jeannine Auboyer, Chief Curator,Musee Guimet, Paris and Roger Goepper, Director of the museum of Far Eastern Antiques in Cologne. It contains 228 illustrations of which 112 in full color. This book is in two  parts as 'India and south-east Asia' and 'China, korea and Japan'. Dividing Oriental Art in two definite parts imply that the writers are masters in their own field. This book was published in 1967 and never came up later. A flow chart of ruling dynasties at the beginning of the book helps the reader to follow the development of art in the Eastern world. Now rare, photographs from some Ajanta panels is book owner's envy. These panels of fresco seco are missing from Ajanta caves in  Maharashtra, India.

LAHIRI'S SELECT POEMS

What is being referred to here is obviously a book of poems, there is no feeling of uncertainty about it. The impromptu question that arises, who this 'Lahiri' is?  I will try to clear the doubts. Mr.S.K Lahiri long back in early twentieth century wished to keep alive his father Babu Ramtanu Lahiri's (1813-1898) memory. So he gifted the copyright of his book to University of Calcutta with the idea that the University will raise two gold medals from the fund arising from the sales of this book. These two were named as 'Lahiri medals' to be awarded to, two highest standing candidates in B.A in the subject of 'mental and moral philosophy'. But some changes occurred. In 1914 the University's Syndicate and Senate bodies after  discussion with the donor funded Ramtanu Lahiri research fellowship in 'History of Bengali language and literature' from this fund. The photocopy on the right is a rare first page of the book from University's publication in 1941. I am not sure whether Ramtanu or his son S.K Lahiri liked the poems or not. But one thing is for sure is that three school Headmasters in those days compiled the poems taking utmost care. Who they were, was never known or their names inscribed in the book. This book measuring 139 pages and 58 poems is a marvel when appreciated from a compiler's standpoint. The spread out of poems  range from Shakespeare, Nashe, Wotton, Dekker, Herrick, Blake, Wordsworth, Shelly, Keats to De la mare.The only Indian entry is 'Cradle song' by Mrs. Naidu. Such vast and unique is the collection that any publisher from this twentieth century will be dumbstruck and humiliated. This book was a compulsory inclusion in class IX syllabus in the golden era of matriculation examination. I am sure none from class IX these days will be able to assimilate such higher level of English literature. We and our students may have entered a world of extreme jugglery of abbreviations from the I.T (Information Technology) but alas with a loss of heart for the vibrant, worthy English and Vernacular literature. I myself have proper respect for today's Headmasters with M.A(English). But I am not confident of believing that they are comfortable of delivering such level of English teaching.

FACTS NEWS VIEWS

Suniti  and Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore had once written some thirty odd letters to Suniti Kumar Chattopadhyay, the eminent Indian linguist. Pallav Mitra had taken pains to pen down an anthology in Bengali named, "Samasamayik drishtite Suniti Kumar" (eng. Suniti Kumar as remembered today) which contains these rare collection of letters. This book should be an authentic read and worth a collection. Sri Mitra will be remembered long for his efforts.

A GOOD BOOK THAT IS MISSING

Tales Retold For Easy Reading is a series in English literature published by Oxford University Press we all miss today. It was a series written on widest of topics, starting from 'crime and detection', 'world's greatest stories', 'Gulliver's Travels Stories', 'Myths and Legends' to Shakespeare's vast literature. One such series "The stories of Shakespeare's plays" was an excellent compilation edited by H.G.Wyatt and first published in England in 1939 and then subsequent editions and reprints brought out from India at a rather low cost. Priced only at seventy-five paise in India in 1968 and stories retold by H.G.Wyatt and David Fullerton in the most easily soluble form was a gift of the Magi you can imagine of. The first volume of this series which contained only seventy six pages in paperback bearing the best of Shakespeare's creativity like 'The merchant of Venice', 'Macbeth', 'The Tempest', 'Hamlet' and 'King Lear' is unmistakably a reader's delight. Schools in those days invariably kept this book in their curriculum in seventh standard or class seven, as you like to call it. This book is one, I still remember reading during my off-study hours not remembering that I hated school books. Such lucid was the writing that it would unknowingly make you buy a 'Complete Works of Shakespeare' ,  you later realizing that how difficult it is to read his plays and enjoy. This series would be an ideal choice of a parent who stresses his or her child to learn correct English and while learning the language develop a subtle taste for good literature. There are some hand drawn illustrations of poor standard in it but it matters little when you are engrossed with the book. If this is re-published today, imagine how beautiful computer generated images can be incorporated. I failed to find in the internet someone from the field of  English literature reviewing this book and demanding a publisher to publish it. This writing of mine, I believe can barely inspire an adult to shed his sweat in some old book's store, for his offspring.

CRIES WITHOUT TEAR

(Extracts from a school boy's summer holiday diary)

It's the best time of my life, may be the 'best time'. I am on a summer holiday. I won't have to get up for the school. On these days I feel much relaxed when I leave my bed. No more wrinkles on my forehead, no more dull headaches. No more looking at the wall clock too. Only five days of the twenty-day honeymoon has gone, I believe. But I know it's not going to last long. Headaches will be back with stomach cramps in another fifteen days. Abraham, the bald headed six-footer, should have been a dull headed rowdy boxer instead of a maths teacher. He knows well, how to slap, taunt a student and turn him a fool out of the thirty odds in the class. So that you too start laughing. When he is angry he can kick you on the arse never thinking that you too have grown up hairy armpits like his and you deserve some kind of respect (at least like his pet 'Jojo') before the girls. May be he doesn't like an idiot-headed five- footer like me but he has a heart for Aron the all-rounder. He loves him like his son and sometimes its so overwhelming that the whole class keeps laughing. But I am not entitled to laugh with them. My father doesn't pay for my laughing, I am told by my class-teacher. If Abraham sees me enjoying with others he would drive a smart tight slap on my face colouring it violet with shame.

I don't know what is wrong with my cerebrum. Nothing goes in, in time. Not even a bit of easy trigonometry or an algebra. I know how to add, how to subtract and even multiply and divide. But not algebra. Bullshit, I believe my skull is filled with. But I am not sure of it. If it's shit from a bull, it must be smelling through my nostrils? But it doesn't. Still Abraham keeps on repeating that it's shit in my head and my classmates have started believing that too. Each time I tell him that I can't see properly from the last bench, he keeps on saying that its shit from the brain that obstructs my view. I know if I keep repeating my request, he will make me kneel down right in front of the black board. May be he believes, then only can I see the writings on the wall, best. 'A wall', I said? My classroom wall seems like a German wall that divides the east and the west. I can see the street corner from my seat. At four, when I am free, my blood pressure drops to normal. Then I am free to carry me around the street corner away to my home with ease. No more questions, no more humiliations, no more slaps, no more insults.

Trojan sits next to me in the class. He is a good friend of mine. He too is a six -footer but not like Abraham Sir. He loves me, he understands me and protects me too. When others start bullying me, Trojan comes to rescue. Others are afraid of Trojan because he is tall and stout like a colt who can thrust a solid blow to your head when he is angry. I have noticed Abraham too respects Trojan. I think it's Trojan's physique that brings him respect. Trojan too sits on the last bench but he doesn't have bull shit in his head like mine. Abraham doesn't say so but I know Trojan has thin watery crow shit in his vault. I have often seen crow shit on the back of his shirt. It must have spilled out of his head when he tilted. It's almost in the same way the shit in my head obstructs my view. I plan to gather some courage and ask Abraham about Trojan's head, one day.

When I grow up I wish to be a minister in the government. I know it requires little education to be so. Aron too has told me that. If by chance I am elected to the parliament I will make life tough for Abraham. Abraham doesn't have a brain to dream of that. I will promulgate a law that will deduct one point from a teacher when he fails to teach one student and two points if two students fail. And you know what is 'one point'? One point is half of one's salary. I know one plus one is two. And what is two points? I told you earlier that I can perform additions well. 'Two' is no salary. Then only I believe will Abraham learn how difficult it is to learn mathematics.

PEN AND THE SWORD

(Extracts from a school boy's summer holiday diary) The school teachers keep reverberating the same questions every alternate year without knowing how tiring and uninteresting it is to appear in the examinations.'Pen and the sword', 'A village fair', 'A railway journey' keep repeating like poor report cards intentionally published by schools every December. Don't they upgrade themselves like my friend upgrades his cell-phone every winter? A pen is no more made of steel or such durable material. It's made from plastic these days and cracks even when it falls over a bale of stacked cotton. I love my class teacher so much that my heart refuses to use even a single dirty word against him. Otherwise I would have met Mr.Stuartson, the Principal and told him that he holes up a pair of dinosaur's testicles in his skull vault. He still believes that his pen is mightier than the sword. It's not just bull-shit, it's the dirty smelling shit my nearby slum dwellers evacuate at the pavement edges. My father is another such empty vaulted dinosaur like my class teacher. Last year when the dipsomaniacs from my nearby slum came for a festival bonus without earning it, my goddam father refused. They slapped him twice on the face believing that a professor might need two slaps for the memory engram to work. But it did not. He straight went to Mr.Dobson the chief law-keeper. The law keeper was having a vertigo he suffers every saturday night from the medicine he takes, prescribed by his doctor friend, an honour'ble member of the supreme bureau belonging to my honour'ble country. My father didn't know that Dobson was a left handed strong bull. Dobson gifted him one slap on right side of his face and angrily snatched the pen my father kept in his pocket. 'Writing a complaint?.....' uttering, he tore the letter my father carried to his office. With a sixty kilometers an hour blow to the pen, Dobson broke open the cap and pushed it's nib into the wooden table. 'See what I have done to your pen, it now looks like a silver beaked kingfisher', he said and left the room.

(from wikimedia commons)

He came back the next moment, still smelling. 'Do you know this?' ,he asked, pointing at his holster. 'This is a sword, a modern day sword. Its getting smaller and smaller, like your laptop', he uttered, 'Its my pen too, it doesn't write I know but it can make holes. 'You can write with holes too' he laughed.

NOBEL AND NOBILITY

Once a cricket frenzy friend of mine asked me, "Do you know who the best judge is to decide when a batsman should be discharged leg-before-wicket?" It was a difficult question indeed knowing well that half of such decisions invited controversies. Not much aware of the game, I used my intelligence and replied with confidence, "The wicket-keeper", believing he is the only man looking staright into the ball and positioned exactly behind the batsman. "No" was the bold reply from my honour'ble friend. His lightning, disgruntled behaviour just floored me. Sharp came the right answer which I haven't even dreamt of. "It's the batsman himself", he said. But the irony is, how many such batsmen we know have walked away before the umpire had raised his finger? I know of one such living person who has the courage but had never dared to express. But courage without it being delivered is of little value. It's Barrak Obama, the American President. He knows that he is not worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize but he lacks the strength to express. He is an intelligent man who ought to know whether he is treading the right path or not. The road; one less travelled by, he took, only a few months back is no more with him. He may be remembered in the history books to be the first black President of "guardians" of this unholy world but the book likely is to be a "cartoon book". Its October of 2009 and its high time before the bells ring in second week of December. Let the man rise from his humble chair and show the world, the astonishing strength of the color of his skin and genuflect before the world saying, " Let me be the first to refuse the prize which I know am not worthy of". He may then find the whole world genuflecting before him with tears in their eyes.