The library at Madras
Christian College is host to a vibrant repertoire of very old books, some of which
date back even to the 19th century.
Among these many books
from the past that adorn the library’s coveted holdings, one such book, you
will be surprised, still finds mention in the syllabus of the II BA English
Programme, here at MCC.
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| Miller Memorial Library, Madras Christian College |
Quite heartening at
that!
Published in the year 1889
(the year our First PM Nehru was born!], this book on The Art of Rhetoric by Wayne C. Booth, has been prescribed for students
for ages!
The pretty demy sized book
is regally ensconced in a good hard-bound dark-blue cover, with all the pages compact
and intact! And yes! It’s NOT the perfect binding types or the saddle stitching
types that have been a rage in recent times! It’s the solid stitch-binding of
yore that has kept the all the pages intact! Not even one page has fallen out
of the binding – after 128 years of its lived history!
A Wonderful Book of
yore – Mighty in letter, bright in print, and radiant in spirit!
Well, as I was handling
this paper on ‘Prosody and Rhetoric’ for more than ten years, before my juniors
could take over from me, not wanting the original to be spoilt at the rough and
shoddy handling of the photocopier operator at the photocopier shops, who, [when
they just press the book face down on the machine, as hard as they could get it],
send a shivering chill down your spine every time the page is flipped
recklessly!
To avoid such ‘harsh
treatment’ to a good old book from the good ol’ past, i sat at my desk, with
the book gently placed on a pedestal-like frame in front of me, and started
typing out from it, word by word, all the three chapters that I needed for my II BA students.
After having got them
in typeset, I promptly put it up on our blog too, years back! [You can find it
HERE.] The masters of the past have said it all, for us! Not a word from these chapters has changed on the topic of Rhetoric even
today!
Be it On Style, On
Diction, On Figures of Speech, you have it all here. As simple and as eloquent
as could be!
One could see students
and teachers alike having borrowed it, as early as the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s,
1960s 1970s, 1980s, etc., date-stamps etched in various hues and shades, on the first
page.
With the present Librarian
having taken up a vigorous and intensive renewal and restoration of the library
and its holdings, I decided that, the book needs to be preserved for posterity
and so promptly handed it over to him, for safe-keeping! There are scores of such
books in Connemara Library, in the Adyar Library and Research Centre, at the
Theosophical Society, and quite a few of them at the Anna Centenary Library
too!
The question that
comes to our minds is, what are the initiatives of the government to preserve
her old treasures of the past?
Today’s Newspaper [TOI] had
a related news item on preservation of old books, which was indeed a joyous
treat to all bibliophiles!
Although it’s a ‘single
step’, indeed, it’s a laudable ‘giant leap’ for the Humanities at large!
Here goes!
Government-Run Bureau Unearths, Reprints 875 Tamil Texts
By Ananth MK
CHENNAI: 26 September 2017.
Ranging from
differential calculus to oceanography and literature, the erstwhile Bureau of
Tamil Publications run by the state government had since 1961 published at
least 1,016 titles valued for high-quality content. But, little was done to
catalogue at least their master copies and only 875 could be retrieved.
The Bureau, which has
now evolved into Tamil Nadu Textbook and Educational Services Corporation
(TNTBESC) responsible for printing Samacheer books for 1.33 crore students, has
started reprinting the old books by scanning and scrapping ink marks. It plans
to expand it and have a stall at Chennai Book Fair 2018 to display 875
reprinted copies of books published between 1961 and 1980.
Earlier this week, the
corporation got 100 copies each of the first 25 books printed, without
deviating much from the original in design and content.
More than a 1,000
books, mostly English to Tamil translations, were published by the corporation
launched in 1961 to benefit Tamil medium students in colleges.
The importance it was
accorded was such that chief ministers M Bakthavatchalam, M Karunanidhi and MG
Ramachandran were its chairpersons.
"Printing and
ensuring timely delivery of 10 crore textbooks annually has been our priority.
In the 2016-17 budget, school education minister earmarked Rs. 5 crore for
digitisation and reprinting books published by the bureau 40-50 years ago.
Effort to collect and reprint them began a year ago," managing director D
Jagannathan told TOI.
As the Textbook
Corporation did not have even a single copy of those books, last September,
they wrote to district libraries,
universities and colleges in the state asking them to identify books published
by the BTP and TNTS in their possession.
More than 50 colleges
responded with books, said TNTBESC consultant (publication) M Appanasamy.
"We got multiple copies of a few hundred books and replies for about 200
saying they had books in the library but could not spot them. So we went there
and fished out those books from the pile," he said.
They managed to
collect books published in 875 titles covering 32 categories and found the
bureau published more than 1,000 books as one of them said it was the 1,016th
publication.
The work has just
begun. Some books were torn and damaged beyond repair, while the rest need a
lot of reworking to be re-published.
The pages were scanned
and the underlining, scribbling and other marks removed, after which copies of
25 of these books were published earlier this week. About 300 nationalized
books by 100 Tamil authors have been identified for republication.
Hats off to the laudable effort of the Textbook Corporation!
(TNTBESC)
I couldn’t help recollecting John Milton’s famous dictum, ‘A
good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured
up on purpose to a life beyond life.’
May this good initiative bring the present and future
generations closer to their rich and vibrant past!
Image Courtesy: learnof.com
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