The palash are in bloom—delicate, fragile. Selective! Just
one or two flowers reluctantly scattered under a massive tree.
Watching a child’s glee at her first soap bubbles….
A friend pointed me to an online reseller of used books.
Hardly used books, very used books, books so fragile they tear when you turn
the page… but what a steal. Appeals to my frugal heart, though I went overboard
with the buying… a book on 1950’s Indian film industry, a book on the trek to
Shri Badrinath (1958 edition)…who’d have owned these? Why would someone sell
them away?
2 comments:
I collected books my whole life. My parents did, and I inherited them from my father.
I worked (and still do) with books, I help books to be born - help with texts, structure, correct, all of it.
My rooms are filled to the brim with books. If I have the money I buy books.
Now and then, only over the last few years, I have the idea of getting rid of them all.
The beautiful photograph books, the delicately printed ones, the simple and acid-sour ones that only have a value in a specific point because it's local or very specialised science related ; even my loves, those who were good company over the years, regardless of their state.
Away ! Burn !
They are like annual rings, examples and testes of my life, my thought, my study.
I asked a seller. He shook his head and grinned : If you want to sell, a man of your age and education, put it on the web, single by single, and try to make a profit - I can not take your library, I could not sell it in one, I have no place, no time - what I can give you is a fracture of what it is worth, if you want to get rid of them NOW.
So it is time to collect now. 90 % of all of them will get destroyed. Digital preservation is a joke. If one believes in the book, then it is now the time to act.
I will keep them, but I do not believe in them any more - it is me, and it is not me. A snakeskin.
Now they are only heavy to me, a load & burden, but I still believe in the idea of the book. Our whole culture depends on this.
TA - I'm blabbing. SOrry.
Wow, books from 58...yeah wonder who owned them...
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