The Yellow Pages.

This is a note of gratitude. For all that I have read.

A note of gratitude for those who have written them, and to those who gave me to read more, and each time, yet more.

Induced by a few lines in some random newspaper/ magazine on some random flight to somewhere, “…To Be Staged: Enid Blyton’s “The Case of the Disappearing Cat”…. Prithvi theatre…..” ( o Mumbai!!)

My first series of encyclopedia was bought for me when I was four years old. A series of “ tell me why” in red, blue, green, red and orange which had pictorial and illustrated paragraphs on Aborigines, Radar, Darwin’s evolution, magnetism , Hamlet, prismatics, Edison and Loius Pasteur, and Henry VIII.

At about the same time, my grandfather gave me my first heirloom, a complete set of Arthur Lee’s Children’s Encyclopedia, which he had bought for my mother from England when she was a little girl. Ten volumes hard bound in maroon leather and the script embossed in golden cursive writing. I remember, very vividly even now, that though most of the yellow pages were too boring, and the print too small, it had the best presentation of Ancient Greek and Roman history and Mythology that I have ever come across, and stories of Mediterranean Pirates.

Enid Blyton. I am proud, very proud to say that I have each and every one of her books. All genres.

When I was 3, or 4…Ma had bought a second hand blue book of “bedtime stories” . I don’t remember the stories as such, but I could smell oranges, feel a golliwog in my hand every time I read that book. Also, I remember concluding, with a valid reason, that I just couldn’t mentally digest a tea pot in the shape of a cow.

Enchanted tree…. Hard bound , yellow cover. Ma bought it for me when I was 5, and had mumps and god knows what not, was ill for about a month. The Far-away Tree, Mr. Saucepan, and Dame Wash-a-lot. It had a beautiful picture of sunshine in a forest. Ma told me they were called “pencil-rays”. I had fallen in love with the word. I don’t know if it was because of the picture, the sunshine or the way Ma told me. I just fell in love with it.

She also introduced me to my First Book Store. Mr. Attic’s house, an Anglo Indian who converted a part of his home to a book store. Lived around the corner, near our house in Park Circus, he also sold his home made Gooseberry and Plum Jam.

Secret Seven. Once, again five years old. A stupid story…. But the beginning of my fantasies with meetings in a shed, chocolate biscuits and lemonade. I used to get both choc biscs and nimbu paani regularly; I couldn’t associate it with these. And I never knew there was more of Secret Seven.

Class three. My serious, nonstop and total addiction/ devotion to Enid Blyton. Five Find Outers: “The Mystery of the Disappearing Cat”. I had borrowed it in class, ( from Debolina or Karubakee), and had finished reading it in school( sneakily during and in between classes), without bringing home. I only had to mention it to Ma, and it turned out that she had a copy. Hard bound, the paper jacket had a watery painting of a Siamese cat in a cage or something. Kudos to Ma. She would go all out to buy me books. Often she would take me and bhai to “The Family Book Store” or “Oxford” in between, or after classes. But, what was more enjoyable, thrilling and “Adventurous” was how she would also scour second hand book stores on Ripon Street, Free School Street and what not; she had a “friend” who sat on the pavement in Lake Market every evening. She knew these shady book shops in places that were not familiar, ( and today am grown up enough to call them marvelously shady) and she always, miraculously would get her books “for a song”…( yes, I thought my mother, with many other women would sing in a chorus).

I soon had all the Secret Sevens, Five Find Outers, Famous Fives, a group of four….. Three groups of four…..the Mallory towers andSt. Claire collection……

1993: Christmas present: the entire series: Rilloby fair, Rat a tat tat, Rub a Dub Dub,…with a boy Snubby ( and dog) and Barney ( and Miranda) and 2 other kids.

The school library was wonderful too. All the three Loreto libraries. Lovely wooden shelves, rich brown, laden .Totally loaded…. And once Mrs. Bose realized how much I read… she would allow me to issue books even twice a week, instead of the stipulated once a week.( Wednesdays). Middle school…. O bliss bliss bliss…. The time I spent there… the windows!!!! I was even asked by Mrs. Mazumdar to help her to catalogue, and categorize books. I had thought of being a librarian then, but being a vet was a promise to me and to all.

Vet. A book called “I want to be a Vet”. My source of inspiration. 3 years old…. Read out to me the first time , and I would read again and again.

This wasn’t it. Ma made sure that I read a lot of stuff. I have never traveled abroad, but I have smelt the mist of the Lochs, I have felt London soot, I have walked English Country side lanes lined with honeysuckle hedges. I have lived, for many years….in a world where policemen had shiny black shoes and belts, and there were postmen who lugged mail sacks, or cheeky boys on cycles. I know what an English Lawn is. I have watched English clouds, been in meadows…..and English willows. I have camped in American prairies; I have been a Red Indian…. I have seen timber and Redwood forests, but I didn’t know they were redwoods. Nor pines, nor oak. I know how the Irish look different from the English, I have seen Queens and Brooklyn (courtesy: “ A Tree Grows In The Yard”-Betty Smith).

William Brown, Biggles the pilot, Billy Bunter and Jennings. Non Enid Blyton of course, but Ma gave me her childhood collection, and supplemented , complemented and resurrected by buying replacements, and gaps even when I had outgrown them. (No I never did actually).

Pollyana, Noel Streatfield’s “Ballet shoes” and Tennis Shoes”, Shirley….It is endless.

The Aurobindo Ahsram library on Theatre Road. Thrice a week Ma would brave rains and traffic, and risk getting home an hour too late, and dog not fed etc…. But she would take me and bhai to the library as if it was our only chance of Holy Enlightenment.( she wasn’t ever as particular about Piano Classes, or Choir practice ...both in much later years). That was a lovely ,quiet library, three books a time, thrice a week for children. We had to take off our shoes there. And Bhai would look for books with maximum illustrations, and largest print.

A little older, and Agatha Chrities, Flicka,Trixie Belden and Roald Dahl, Bobsey Twins (second hand copies….. they aren’t printed any more).

I re read the “classics”…. Robinson Crusoe, Dickens, The Last of the Mohicans, Moby dick, L.A Alcott( no I never thought “Little Women” was sissy). Perry Mason, by Earle Stanley Gardener….I bet you guys haven’t even HEAARD of the American legend…. Criminal lawyer. Not too old either.

My grandfather intervened in the brusquest ways. I was clearly the kid in the family who was a bookworm. His high standards of education and literature and all things exalted were not spared on me. He bought a set of Nehrus writing for me when I was ten. “Glimpses of World History” and “India’s Struggle for Independence” . It was only many years later that I understood his note in it “may you read them over and over again till you understand”.

A humongous and gigantic thesaurus when I was hardly 12, but I used it, and loved it since then. Nirad Choudhuri when I was 14 or 15. Parashuram and Sharat Samagra when I was 13.

I remember asking him for “War And Peace”; the un abridged version, and he had darkly muttered “bloody commie book”, as if it contained explicit content. (Explicit: a word I learnt from Eminem’s cassette cover). He did promise to get it for me though. And bought me a book “ History or English Literature, and Famous English Authors.”(What a substitute…!!!!)

Ruskin Bond. A common love between Bhai, me and Ma. Penguin Publishers.”Trees grow in Dehra” was my first. However “The Room on the Roof” was a favorite and painted a riot of colors in my mind when I read it at the age of 11.

“India Remembers: 100 stories”; an illustrated book in a yellow jacket: Akbar to Raja Ram Mohan Roy . Ma bought from Paragon ( on Park Street) after school one day. Later I was given Bipin Chandra’s writing. Years later when I was 18…. The second volume.

The school Library gave me my favorite book. “The Count of Monte Cristo”. Though I have the other Alexander Dumas’ works (from Ma’s child hood library, approved by my grandfather); I still don’t have the edition of “The Count” that I want.

This was all before I became independent in my reading and choice. My flirtations, obsessions and serious cases, the Sidney Sheldon and Jeff Archer phase….. O’Henry, Maupassant, Kafka and Saki…. Before I began my long love affair with Indian Authors, then the Russians, and before I began to choose my books and cultivated my own taste and knowledge of literature, history…. And well…. Simply books.

I have all those books. I have re read each and every one of them. I have cried, giggles, and sighed….i have fantasized “oreangeade and lemonade”, the Loch monster in kilts, the Boston TeaParty, the Great Depression,Swiss Chalets and American Red Gingham checks.

I am glad, and grateful that Ma always monitored my reading when I was a child and never encouraged Nancy Drew and Hardy boys( Three Investigators was allowed), totally and strictly banned Sweet Valley ( god , it was worse than Prohibition)…. And TV was never so hot as far as Ma was concerned.

My grandfather never thought there was any age for reading. He shared what he liked, and thought I should read it too, be it an article from a “Desh” Magazine, or Bibhuti Bhushan, his friend Nirad C Choudhuri or some book which was about the Naxalite movment. “ My God Died Young” was the only book he wouldn’t allow me to read… with mumbled excuses that I should read the original Bangla version, or that I wouldn’t understand the English version. Hehe….I realized why when I was in college.

The libraries…. Such a sanctity. I had managed to find , and enrolled with a lending library in Nasik ( and flicked a Naipaul’s first edition of “A Bend in the River”, and another one of his books, set in South Africa…. Apologies )

I love my books. As yellow as they have become, Mr. Pink whistle and Amelia Jane will be safe and protected.

Thanks…. Mostly Ma, but also the authors who wrote them, the people who collected them or built libraries, and to those people who realize that they just need to buy me a book.