A fair part of last weekend was invested in reorganising all my books at home. It was not much to my surprise that my ratio of read to unread books was rather dismal and I hastily and rather sheepishly made a mental note not to be tempted of buying another book from the next mailer sent by Flipkart . Or while passing by a bookshop at the airport or at the mall.
But books ( except the one's in school and college) and me have a love love relationship.
As it turned out I was invited to attend a Jane Austen Book Club meet at a refreshingly well appointed, old world charm kind of bookstore - 'Kitabkhana' - situated right behind the Hutatma Chowk Memorial at Fountain.
After the event I had a good fifty minutes or so to kill before my next appointment , our annual iftari food savouring in Bohri Mohalla & Mohammed Ali Road. I decided to invest this time in browsing around Kitabkhana. Trust me that I did start in earnest, remembering my resolve not to fall prey into buying books that I will not read - or read immediately. So here I had the mental makeup of a celibate monk, looking but not buying. Trust me I was doing well, walking from section to section , monk like, just the robes and the rosary were missing.
The setting was just right. The sight and sound of thundering rain, outside the store. Multitudes of passerby's, jostling for the narrow covered space between the road and the store. A flurry of work people, colourful umbrellas protecting them, making their way back from work, probably walking to meet their trains at Victoria Terminus. I, the monk, in this superbly lit bookstore and then this wafting aroma of freshly brewed coffee gently meandered up to me, literally through the aisles of the store. A mix of all this together arose me from my 'monk' state and ignited me to connect. Connect with books, hundreds and thousands of them lying all around me.I got into a state of childlike abandon.
I love books for the carefully selected titles thought of by their authors. I love books for their fonts, the typeface and passion the publishers put behind the readability experience that we go through. I love books for all the lovely pictures they carry, specially the coffee table books, all of them giving the subtle unsaid experience , taking our imagination along with them. I love books for their smell - the mint fresh printing press smell and then the smell of a book that hasn't been thumbed for long. I love books for the their covers and their colours - each enticing one like flowers in a garden, each having it's own place and identity under the sun. I love books for their shapes, sizes - small and pocket worthy, big like a virtual treasure chest - treasures of information, pictures, illustrations. I love books for their opening page - the first few lines - the one's where the author sets the pace the expectation, the tempo of the book, enough to keep the reader enamoured for the rest of the read.
Needless to add, I walked out of the store to my car carrying two bagfuls of books and comics. Ignited, waiting to reach home and read the already read Asterix & Obelix comic - each frame a mastery, in illustration and in story.
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