CONFESSION OF A SERIAL BOOK-STEALER-
part 1.
It might be
a story of many book-lovers who die to read the books but can’t buy ones. They
cut their expenses, they suppress their urge to go to a newly-realized
multi-starer movie, they nip in the bud their desire to spend a few bucks on a
denim, they visit every possible old book store, they haggle to the book-shop
owner to buy as many as possible books with the meager budget and then they
walk home with a cheerful grin taking the bag full of books on shoulder having
spent all the money they have, still they find they haven’t bought enough
books. The more they read, the more they feel thirsty to read more.
Rise of a serial book-stealer:
I don’t remind how I became a book-reader but
I can’t forget even a word of ‘how I became a book-stealer’.
In this divine (or evil, I don’t know, and
don’t bother either) cause, teachers and lecturers in my college supported to
make the background. Their motto was no-bad, they tried hard to keep us away
from the enchanting world of books so that we could focus on the study and
could share our contribution to raise the glory of the college. But they might
forget that ‘forbidden fruit caused Adam to commit sin’.
When I was studying (?) my graduation in not
one of the best colleges in a not so progressive city of Maharashtra, we were
allowed reading only the books related to study and we weren’t even allowed to
enter the library. Only the students of master’s degrees had the direct access
to the books they wanted. The species that were perusing the master’s degree
couldn’t afford wasting their valuable time and energy in literature. On other
hand we, poor fellows, had enough time, energy and desire but weren’t allowed
to read those books. We have to tell name of the book we wanted and the peon
would fetch it for us. Obviously peon was strictly warned to issue only course books.
You can imagine the plight of a reader.
then the day came.It was one of the brightest mornings I had
ever seen as if specially made to show me many hidden things. Early morning when
my friends and I were returning from a practice match of cricket on the college
ground, I peeped through window of a hard, stony wall. It was the back wall of the
library and I discovered that our college library hadn’t only bulged with those
boring reference books on ‘Abstract mathematics’, ‘Relativity’, ‘ Statistics’
‘Computer science’ and money more worthless massive bundles of papers but in
the hidden shelves, the library had treasured the emeralds, diamonds and
pearls.
One day, I
convinced our librarian to get inside the library lying that I wasn’t getting
the exact book. I crossed the first compartment where scholars had drowned
their intelligent heads into the books of the size almost half of their bodies.
I entered the second room which was less crowded than the earlier, I passed it
too. I reached the last hall of the library which was adorned by the
spider-webs, dust covering every possible surface and some nests of the
birds were hanging down the roof. The room was quite and a there was no light.
Amidst a layer of
dust were laying the books with red covers like the soldiers in uniforms waiting
for the call from battleground. I picked a book from the uppermost shelf, it was about
five-six hundred pages, I dusted it off, opened the hard-bound cover page and I
had to hold my breath; it was ‘Mother’ by Maxim Gorky. The book I had searched
in every library I knew in the city, but couldn’t find. Now it was right there in
my hand, I felt the bubbles of happiness sprouting inside me - I wanted to shout in joy, I wanted to
dance, I wanted to take the book and read it at once, but I was in the library
and according to the rules I wouldn’t be
allowed to do anything of that sort. i opened the book and my eyes caught the
letters and numbers written with a pen on the first page, there was the date
when the book was last issued. The date was 19-8-1973.
After 29 years ‘Mother’ was feeling a human
touch, a warm hand of a reader. I hated my college for the carelessness.
I opened several other books. There were
‘Discovery of India’, ‘Old man and the sea’, ‘Brother Karamazov’, ‘Geetanjali’ ,‘Women
in Love’…….all were abandoned, untouched, unread for last 20-30 years. Some books were decaying; the pages of many
books had become too weak to bear even touch.
I kept the
books at their places suppressing my urge to take them home right then. i came
running out of the library, met the librarian and asked her if she could sell
the old books in some reduced price.
She looked
at me suspiciously as if I had asked her to be my mother-in-law (her daughter
was in my class). She scanned me through her spectacles for a while and told
that she would ask the principal and then inform me.
I met her
after a couple of days. It was a resounding no. “We can’t sell the books from
the library”, she said without looking at me.
The last room of the library felt like a Nazi
concentration camp. ‘It is the insult of the books’. And there, right there at that moment I
decided to put my character of a sincere student at stake; I decided to be a
thief, a book thief.
After three days, I sneaked inside the library
during the lunch break when there was no one at the counter. The window on the
right wall of the third hall of the library would open to the playground of the
college. The ground was without any trace of human being. It was the moment. I took ‘Mother’,
‘Brother Karamazov’, ‘Women in Love’ and ‘Discovery of India’ and threw them
out of the window one by one making the least possible noise. First three
landed smoothly on the earth but the last,‘Brothers Karamazov’ bumped on a piece
of metal sheet making a big ‘thud’. Before the peon could reach me, I, to cover
yell of ‘Brothers Karamazov’ pulled several other books from the uppermost shelf
and banged them on the floor. Before I’d convince him the peon considered that
the books slipped from the shelf. He lifted the books and gave me a ‘you-idiot’
look.
“Who let you
come inside?” he asked in his earned vexed voice.
“Our
librarian ma’m”, I said and ran out of the library.
I stopped outside and took a deep breath.
The sky
was clear except few black floating patches of clouds. The students in the
campus were laughing, chattering, studying around. I was silent watching their
movements and my breaths. They all seemed to be good people, with no secrets.
But I had a secret- I had stolen the books. It should remain a secret. And to be
frank I wasn’t feeling any repentance for my act rather I patted my back for
the renascent adventure.
In next minute I was in the classroom as it
was the lecture of H.O.D. of mathematics and students were supposed not to bunk
at least H.O.D.’s lecture. “And hence proved the second law of Laplace’s
transformation” Mr.Chaturvedi shouted
breaking my reverie. I was sitting in the classroom pretending that I loved
mathematics more than anything else on earth. But my mind was hovering over the
playground, outside the library. The books beneath the window, in the
playground must be taken to safety before anybody saw them.
Mr. Chaturvedi scrubbed another mathematical
expression on the black board. The watch on my wrist showed 3.45 pm. Mr. Chaturvedi
and Laplace would torture us for 30 more minutes.
A fresh, moist, bold breeze
came strolling in the classroom pitying us, making mathematics a little
bearable. The breeze was filled with the pleasant smell of wet soil. ‘It’s
raining somewhere’ I thought. Oh my god! It’s raining just outside!!! In next couple
of minutes the patter of the drops increased. I had to do something. I couldn’t
afford to wait for the lecture to get over.
I took my college bag and ran from the class room unaware about the
consequences of my foolishness. I heard Mr. Chaturvedi muttered, ‘who’s that?’
he had seen my back vaguely.
I ran as fast as I could. At next minute I was
in the playground facing ‘Mother’, ‘Brothers Karamazov’, ‘Women in love’ and
‘Discovery of India’. They weren’t as drenched as me. I lay them in bag and
headed directly to the hostel whistling my favourite bollywood tune, ‘dil hain chhotasa….’ A tiny little
heart….
It was a great feeling. I had freed some books
from the concentration camp. The night passed amazingly with ‘women in love’
while ‘Mother’, ‘Brother Karamazov’ and ‘Discovery of India' were resting peacefully adorning my small book shelf.
Though some intruding thoughts would come into the territory of mind to
threaten me on the possible disasters on the next day, I surrendered myself to
Maxim Gorky and the rebellious 'Mother'.
I didn’t show up in college for next
three days. From the fourth day onward the days were same as before. After that
the emancipation of the books had become a regular adventure until one day I
was caught red handed………
