The Best Things in Life are Free

I could snatch only a four hour stretch of sleep; from 5.00 am to 9.00 am. Dilly-dallying through the morning, it was only at twelve noon that I stepped out of the house and met up with my old friend Kalpana at the entrance of Pragati Maidan, where the fair was being held. We met at 12.45 pm and entered. For sometime we strolled and chatted, and sat on a bench to eat a something. The book stalls were put up inside the halls. Hall-18 had most of the companies of interest. Rupa had a good collection of books. I was curious about many of them, but since I did not have enough money and since I cannot read so many books, I did not make any purchases. There were books by Somerset Maugham which I’d have been interested in buying, but I still have a decent amount of unread Somerset Maugham stuff.
After this we went to the Penguin stall. Prior to this we’d been discussing about how expensive books had become these days and how publishers extort money by charging exorbitant prices. We were pretty pissed with them and had been discussing possibilities of unlawful divestments from the stalls. The long and short of it was that when we walked out, the Penguin stall was short of one copy of “Burmese Days”. I have to thank my jacket for that. It’s quite capacious.
We were pretty elated by this piece of larceny. It wasn’t larceny to us though. What larceny was to us…nay, much worse than larceny, were the unscrupulous, capitalist methods adopted by companies like Penguin. Why, they steal money right from under our noses. Just think…just a few years back one could buy any book by R.K.Narayan for around 60 or 70 Rupees. One could buy books by Jawaharlal Nehru for about a 100 Rupees. But now books by both these authors are being brought out by Penguin and I’ll be damned if I can find a book by R.K.Narayan for less than 200 Rupees and a book by Nehru for less than 400 Rupees (Discovery of India, the book on World History, his Autobiography). I’m sure Nehru would have been happier if his books had been more accessible. Further, as a point of interest, these books had been written by the authors in in moments of realisatin and inspiration, so it is important to circulate these books. This is exactly what the authors themselves would have wanted. But now, these books are available in beautiful glossy covers, in expensive shopping malls where the rich and beautiful people frequent, and these are the people who are going to buy them if feel so disposed. It’s quite funny, the contrast between a Soviet prison and an air-conditioned sitting-room.
It really miffed us that someone interested in reading a particular book cannot simply because it’s not available in any library and that it’s price in the market is too high. George Orwell is dead nad gone…so is Somerset Maugham. They surely don’t need money in the other world. Why should someone not have access to their ideas for as dreary a reason as money? After all, money is a way in which the world’s resources split. It’s understandable if people with money have access to better cars and more petroleum. But it’s not understandable why money should decide who has access to ideas. Ideas! For God’s sake! How can the companies lay claim to the ideas of other people! Anyway, Kalpana and I agreed that reading a book obtained in this way is one of the most satisfying experiences, so much that it almost gives a high like nicotine or sex.
Just as an aside, I might take this occasion to share a private view of mine. I think it’s really important for India to have a vibrant and dynamic literary movement. The regional language literature is important, and equally important are the translations into other languages. And it is important to have publishing companies that will print these books at reasonable rates. It is not fair that foreign companies do their business in this blood sucking manner.
We had dosa for lunch and then we wandered and chatted and looked at the various book stalls. At the end of the day when we were about to part, I had with me, apart from the purloined book, some Soviet books which I’d got pretty cheap and two anthologies which I’d bought earlier in the day. There was also an anthology of french stories. Kalpana made three purchases, one of which was pretty interesting. It was a collection of true murder stories, all somehow related to artists or musicians. Kalpana… I’m gonna take that book someday and read it!
There was one very trivial incident which happened in the evening, and I thought of setting it down just for the record. It was twilight when we decided to move out. We had been walking beside the huge lake near Hall No. 8 in Pragati Maidan. Kalpana was to my right, and the lake was to our right. We were chatting, and I was absently looking at her and the lake and both of us were feeling a quiet feeling of peace. There was a fountain in the center of the lake of the lake throwing out a huge column of water. The sun had set and the remaining light was fast diminishing. The lights by the side of the road had come on and so had the electric lights that illuminated the shops and other buildings. In the fading light these looked like a newly arrived bunch of stars and their fragmented reflections were waving and rolling on the surface of the lake as if someone was waving a carpet containing diamonds. People were seated on benches beside the lake in idle and relaxed postures. Everything was perfect in that moment. Everything was where it was supposed to be. We had traversed about half the length of the lake when I suddenly noticed all this. I suddenly realised how beautiful it was. I pointed it out to Kalpana. However, the moment I did so, the feeling vanished.