A Re-kindled Affair with Books in Paper and Ink

It happened on the spur of the moment. I was browsing for a new book to read. I came across a book review on the Times or the Post, I forget, and I liked what I read about the book. I wanted a book to read so badly, that I just had to do it. I went on Amazon.com, and gave that defining peck on the keyboard. I had bought my first Kindle book.

The book was mine now. The device Kindle was surprisingly home, and not at work with hubby. So, I grabbed the reader, planted myself on the sofa with my feet tucked under me, and began to read. The kids were asleep, the afternoon sun kissing the room was lovely, and the book was absolutely to its promise. I did not put down the e-reader at all! At night, when all the lights in the house went down, I still wanted to read, even while the kids slept next to me. And I did, in the illumination of the i-pad this time. When I first picked the i-pad, the software even asked me, if it wanted me to start the book from the beginning, or from the page that I was on on the Kindle. (How thoughtful, I thought!) I loved the book, and when the book was finished, I realised that I was almost a convert---I think I am not so much against e-books anymore.

And then, the other day, as I was about to recommend that book to someone, I realised that I didn't even know the name of the author. The entire process of reading the review, buying the book and reading it had been so quick, as to seem almost surreal. Even while reading the book, I was actually taken by surprise, when the book ended. Not because the story line did not lend itself to an end then, but because my fingers had not felt the weight of the book shifting from the left hand to right. That percentage estimate of the portion of the book read, that shows at the bottom of the screen on Kindle, is a good way to know how far is the end, but its not enough of a tactile experience to fill up the senses with the book. And last, but not the least, I dislike now the fact that I can't see the spine of that book on my book shelf, from where I can simply pick a book and read a favorite line or a favorite page. I always have to ensure  that the kindle or the i-pad are charged enough unless I want to read plugged into an electrical outlet.

So, my verdict is that I would still like to lay hands on a real paper and ink book, if I can. However, for those 'right-now' moments, its always good to have somethings a mere click away.

Oh, by the way, the book I read is: Tomorrow There will be Apricots, by Jessica Soffer.

A Morning to Reclaim

Anu Garg's Daily-word mail always ends with a quote, and usually these quotes are absolutely fantastic---simple and truly pearls of wisdom, without the sermons. I try to make that mail one of the first things to read, and of course read it from top to bottom, savoring the end quote throughout the day. Today's was just as poetically lovely:

A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books. -Walt Whitman, poet (1819-1892) 

This used to be so true for most of us in the bygone days....me in particular, would sit with my warm glass of water, and look out at the greenery, or at the sky or at anything that was outside my house, outside my mundane existence, and that which was full of fresh air. Even with the glass windows shut tight, I inhaled a freshness through my eyes and my ears. I was perhaps still but not lifeless. I was filling my limbs with my share of the undivided nature. 

Today, I often do check the measurements of nature in the morning, before stepping out of the house: the weather forecast, precipitation chances and temperatures, but the shade of greyness in the rain filled clouds, the height of waves on the Hudson river and the newest cherry blossoms---still not as profuse to be pictured, but getting there, are lost to me. I am forever zipping to some place, for something. 

And we are all doing that most of the time. Our urban environments and life-styles are of course dotted with time accounting---and urban mothers' schedules are going beyond the roof. Between ferrying kids to school, grocery, enrichment classes, ped visits and playdates, there is almost no breather for the bees and the birds. And yet, it is our little companions--the children, who most need that time to take their steps, make their impressions and indulge their senses. They need to be shown the waves, their fingers need to touch the water, their feet need to jump into and out of the puddles and their hair need to get wet for them to even know what  a lovely earth they are born into. And as their moms, we need to first start, to start our days soaking in the glory of the morning glory. Time to make a trip to Home Depot to buy some potted plants? No, not another car-ride.....not for now at least.

A List of Books I Want to Read

I am going to keep adding to this list as and when a title crosses my eyes, and publish it here, so that I am openly challenged by myself to get to these books some day:

1. Something of Myself----R.Kipling
2. Any book by Joan Didion

V Senior = V Junior = Love Infinite

This is to establish, for all times to come, that my littlest kid has touched my heart in just as many unexpected and beautiful ways as my older kid has. I don't write a lot about her (have long stopped the logging of a weekly journal on child, and neither do I blog often about her here), but this does NOT mean that she is less enjoyable or less loved by any means. 

She evokes poetry in me, just like the older one did, but most often those moments of poetry are super swamped by moments of chasing the older one with fruits to eat, and keeping away Cheerios for fear of overdozing from the younger one. I wish I had a dictaphone on me all the time, to record the sheer sweetness that this little person's antics flood me with, but then I wonder if amidst the shrill cries of resentment being voiced by older one as the little one matter-of-factly destroys yet another of her Barbie set-ups, any of my soliloquies would get recorded at all. Their trivial fights and accompanying displays of all sorts of emotions are tragicomedy and on this soundtrack of life, I find myself empowered each day as a mother of two lovely children. 

Both my kids are equally loved---who could prefer one eye over the other? (Here, I do wonder what parents with three children use as analogies for precious things? I mean, for four children, you can say, four chambers of the heart, for five kids, you can say, five fingers, and for more than that.....do you or the children even have the time to converse? What in our body comes in a precious set of three?)

I find myself doting over V Jr. in playdates at other's places, when I have the time to just sit and watch her, and not worry about who is breaking whose toys. She fills me up with funny, fuzzy affection and all I can say is 'Thank You God, once again'.

No More Bucks for Starbucks?

I guess this is what they call 'divine intervention'. Starbucks and me had become such close pals, one of their paper-cups held in my hand so certainly most of the time, as to appear an extension of my arm that my husband would often suggest we buy shares of the coffee-company, since the company's value could never go down with loyalists like myself. And to think that I picked up drinking coffee just some ten or so odd years back, when I came to this country as a graduate student? Until then, I was all about tea only. Anyhow, so the bottom line is that I was a S.bucks coffee addict--every time I stepped out of the house (this habit was only fueled by the fact that there is a thriving (aren't they all?), bubbling, bustling and of course brewing Starbucks just outside my building). Mind you--it wasn't just any coffee---it was typically S.Bucks. 

And then, out of the blue around the end of last summer, I began to lose my singing voice (yes, I believed, I was an OK crooner), and then just like that, I developed a revulsion for S.Bucks coffee.....now this again is only for the S.Bucks java.....I can tolerate other coffees, I loved the milked version of coffees in India, BUT S.bucks regular coffee?----my body system just repels now. That S.Bucks outside my house is still 'in business' but it is strange that I don't even as much as look in that direction...something within me has just switched off from the Star-topped lady. I have to say, I had had my share of this life-time's S.bucks ....so perhaps time to get addicted to McDonald's coffee? 

Social Exclusion has its Own Consequences

This is in response to Preeti Mann's article published at UPenn's Center for Advanced Studiy of India:

http://casi.ssc.upenn.edu/iit/mann

Preeti Mann,

   This was a timely piece of warning for an India that is stomping, perhaps too fast, towards a model of development which has never been well-planned, despite the endless 'planning commission sessions', and a model which, as it unfolds, turns out to be a miserable patch work of aping the West's ostentatious consumer-culture. The fault lies not just in the lack of planning, but also of course in the pitiable execution of whatever little the rules or laws dictate.

The urban poor are not a new phenomenon, however, as you mentioned, the gap between the urban poor and the urban rich has never been so extensive and so stark. Unlike in the past, when there was so much less conspicuous consumption, it is a difference now in what they eat, what they wear, where they live, how they commute and everything else visible to the naked eye. Understandably, as a critical mass develops in the urban poor who are witness to such palpable inequalities, they are likely to resist the processes that propagate the status quo. Perhaps we are very far from a Tahrir Square, but individual acts of resentment/strike have risen unabated in modern centers nonetheless. Is not crime on the rise in metropolitan centers? Burglaries, rapes and petty crime, make even prime cities like Gurgaon appear resolved to a destiny of mindless commercialization and unsafe environments. It is as though, no one in that city stops to even for once think about the direction in which the haphazardness of urban un-planning is ballooning. From lack of public facilities like smooth roads and car parking, to parks and libraries for children, Gurgaon is an unfortunate example of how India can consistently lose every opportunity to create models of far-sighted development.

Gurgaon has manifested itself as a satellite city to New Delhi only recently, around the turn of the century. Even internet had materialized in the world by then, enabling access to vast libraries and other forms of information to study the models that have worked as opposed to repeating steps that have always failed in India, but of course all this only for one seeking it. Yet, Gurgaon differs from adjoining Delhi and Noida only in the price tags on most goods.

Part because of my training as an economist, and part because of the basic social environment that I grew up in, I am typically biased towards using as a first-cut, a two-step gauge to assess the development of a community. Do women feel safe.... to start with, do they feel physically safe, can they move about past dusk on their own, without a fleet of men as body guards? Second, are there functional public libraries? The recent spate of molestations in Gurgaon, answers the first question all by itself too well. And libraries? Really? Well, as my current on-going self-study on the Indian library system has thus far shown...the answer to second question is a resounding NO also. 

The solution to all of India's malaises will no doubt have to be super multi-pronged and versatile. Creating more streamlined public education system enabling access to educational facilities for the children of slums, can be a good start. And the list is endless. The bottom line though is that ignoring the urban poor in the process of growth is, as you pointed, indeed, both sad, and dangerous.

[Reference: Self Study on Indian Library System at: http://wetheworldenergy.blogspot.com ]

Keep the thinking cap on,

Best Regards,

Nidhi Thakur

Library: The Netflix of Libraries in Gurgaon and Delhi

In trying to search for the condition of those few existent public libraries in India----online data for which is pityingly absent---I came across a Private library project, currently operating in the National Capital Region (Delhi and surroundings)--Gurgaon, Faridabad included. It is called Library at Home. It is noteworthy for a couple of reasons:


a. When public provision of a good is negligible, private entities enter the field to supply to the demand for that good. With Indian authorship---in English language and Indian languages--- soaring like crazy (one just has to look at the long list of authors catalogued in the company's web-site-----heard of Aatish Taseer or Kunal Basu or Priti Narain or Varsha Das?)----it is amply clear that not only are Indians writing, but surely they are wanting to read too. That Library at Home has identified the existence of a possible market for loaned books, when culture of paid-borrowing of books technically does not exist in India, is itself creditworthy and then to invest money into it, doubly so.


b. I give even more credit to this company for the business model that it has adapted. The company's web-site does not explicitly say so, but upon learning about the process of loaning books, I can see that it is a beautiful adaptation of a well-proven process here in the USA---the Netflix model----of loaning DVDs of movies via snail-mail. This is a model that marries technology with existing postal infrastructure. Thus, users create online accounts, browse the well-maintained catalogue of books, and pay and order books online. The books are then delivered to, and upon ready for return picked up from, the doorstep of the user/reader, presumably by a courier or some registered mail. 


By allowing online browsing of catalogues, the company obviously circumvents the renting and maintaining of some valuable real-estate in the NCR region, but creating an uninterrupted flow of books to the reader, in India, can itself be a challenge. For instance, pilferage of books in transit is a big possibility unless the method adopted for posting books is an insured private courier who every time ensures that the book is certainly handed to someone inside the door of the address it was sent to. Second, Indian rains can be merciless when they come, and again, if the books are not deposited safely under a roof, possibility of damage to books can foil the experience for both the expectant reader, as well as the funding company. 


Anyhow, these are issues, which the company must surely have thought about, and priced themselves accordingly. So, while, it is true that I do not need to lose sleep over them, I point these out only because upon acknowledgment of challenges, one can further appreciate the entrepreneurship.


c. Again, I am possibly biased towards books, and therefore, I think that anyone who provides books, especially, in a cost-effective way, is worthy of applause all the time.


Having heaped all these accolades on this sole torch bearer, I come back to the point that India's growing young minds need many, many more sources of books----and at far lower prices. The Public Libraries, without doubt will have to step up, in number and quality. Even the private solution that I have raved about above, is only a very small part of the quantum that we need.  


To start with, in enterprises such as Library at Home there is a basic requirement of internet literacy and access for users. This itself cuts off the huge number of readers who are computer illiterate but are literate all the same. Second, howsoever big or small, there is a fee structure in the Library at Home shop.....as opposed to the gratis that public libraries provide. No matter what, there are always more important destination for money in the pocket, for a large number of potential readers--either to necessities, or to the ever growing number of flashier gizmos and apparel and eating out. Thus, only those who have surplus money, or have a super dedicated zeal for books, will end up subscribing to this system. This again rules out access for a whole lot of those people who could perhaps be allowed access to books as well as to their life-styles. Last but not the least, the variety of books that are currently available through this service is big, but certainly not exhaustive by any means. Furthermore, such services may pander more to 'popular' choices of books as opposed to both 'popular' and literary and serious works. For readers to truly gain a perspective or stand on the shoulders of giants, private enterprises can seldom provide the entire breadth of the shoulders of the giants. Thus an even more pronounced need for the public venture.


Free books will not necessarily translate into more readership directly. But free books may inspire more people to read. To sum up here, I would love to hear from people who have used the Library at Home---about their experiences--grapes or gripes---all welcome.


[Library at home is at: http://www.libraryathome.in/index.php ]