BOOKS! BOOKS! EVERYWHERE! NOT A PENNY
TO SPEND…
Nissy Sara George, II MA English
The
phrase ‘an ocean of knowledge’ acquired a different meaning for me at
the Chennai Book Fair’17. More than 350 publishers were spread over 670 stalls.
It was impossible not to be overwhelmed by the sheer surface area of the
exhibition. I wanted to touch every book I saw, flip the pages and smell the
sweet musty air that flew out at me, but it didn’t take me long to realize that
it would be like trying to count sand. I can’t recall a moment at the fair that
I enjoyed more than the view- books piled upwards, side wards, diagonally,
spirally…
Second
to that moment would be holding all my favorite trilogies and epics in hard
bound versions of their latest self. They say the best things in life are free;
but unfortunately, whoever said that did not own a book. Every time I flipped
over a good book to check if I could buy it my heart sank at the sight of those
figures. After a few similar disappointments my friends and I decided to follow
the crowd. Surely there must be a place for students to splurge. I finally
struck gold with Om Shakti Book House (575-576, 613-614). The posters said
every book was sold at 50/- rupees and I remember thinking, “This is too good
to be true.”
I
found out I was right when I carried eight books to the counter and received a
bill for 1350/- rupees. Not that I didn’t want to spend that much on books but
with the mess bill around the corner and the JAD trip swimming around in my
head, I had to return all the trilogies and took up two other books instead.
The
shiny clean cover of ‘Pink Sari Revolution’ by Amana Fontanella-Khan caught my
eye right out of the leafy pile of books. It still had the plastic wrap on and
as I ripped it free I heard the ‘Gulabi Gang’ of pink clad women call out to
me; but not before I noticed the offended stare and “Hmpf!” that Amitav Ghosh
threw my way. I had been ignoring his lofty style for five years now, never
making it past the first chapter. But that day I decided that if I leave
college without reading him I’d be offending my dignity as a student of
literature. I whisked him off the shelf before ‘The Hungry Tide’ caught up to
us and left the others behind; promising myself that I’d find them again somewhere.
Someday…
Amish has
become a phenomenon over the past few years. And just
like what has happened in the past with other Indian writers being compared to
white European writers, he has been declared as ‘India’s Tolkien’. I’ve been
trying to own his books from the time I completed ‘The Immortals of Meluha’,
but even at a book fair he’s above the scope of ever being on SALE. And I had a
thought just then - why were the Fifty Shades books sold at 150/- rupees a piece
and Amish’s books at 500/- rupees? And if you buy all three books of the Fifty
Shades series you get them for 300/- rupees. Can you really blame people for
reading only what they can easily afford?
Still,
it was good to see Indian Literature in English do so well in the global
market.
I
left the Chennai Book Fair’17 wondering if I’d ever make it to those shelves;
and more importantly if some student, decades from now, would be writing an
assignment about the long lost legend of an ocean of books on land.
- Nissy
Sara George
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