The Book Predators

We've all met them. The Book Predators who borrow your books and never return them. I was introduced to them fairly early in life, probably because the collective love for books that ran in my family had ensured that I had a massive collection of wonderful books from a very young age. At first I had no problem lending my books to people I knew. I'd derived several hours of pure joy thanks to a particularly wonderful book that I had chanced upon at a friend or relative's house and that they had been kind enough to lend me, and I knew only too well the thrill one gets when one feels that instant connect with a book, the blissful feeling of losing oneself between its covers, savoring the moment when one can get back to it after a break and basking in that warm feeling after a delightful read, reliving the high points and knowing that you could reach out to savour them all over again.

'Anne of Green Gables' was one such find, I'd come across it at a family friend's house where we'd been invited for dinner and had spent the evening devouring it, much to the chagrin of the other kids who were one player short for a detective game they wanted to play. 'What Katy Did Next' was another. 'A Suitable Boy' was read over the course of a weekend at my aunt's, hidden under the duvet by my cousin's bed so the adults couldn't find me and send me packing to the club for swimming lessons with my cousins.

And so I lent my books as well, to friends who asked, hoping that this would be the start of a wonderful relationship between them and my beloved book. And that's when I encountered the Book Predators. Those heartless souls who steal your books without a second thought, with no intention of ever returning them. I had no idea how to deal with them then and the years haven't made me any wiser. If at all, it was easier when I was a child, I could just impose the 'House Rules' on them, namely, direct them to my parents for permission before borrowing a book or simply state that I was not allowed to lend books. This backfired quite often, especially if the parent in question was my mother who tended to have a rather liberal, 'ah, these things happen' outlook when a book went missing, and who in general felt that I read way too much anyway and would be better off being out of doors instead. Still, there were times when I was able to save my books thanks to the 'House Rules'. However the problem with house rules is that they tend to become redundant after a point. That point is typically reached when you find you now have a house of your own, and worse still you are now the parent and the figure of authority, so you can't exactly tell that beady eyed female spectre eyeing your beloved Wodehouse that you have to check with Daddy first.

I have no problem lending my books to someone who I know shares my love and respect for books and who I know will return a borrowed book in good condition eventually. But what does one do with a predator? The new acquaintance who borrows a book and promptly forgets all about it. The relative who forgets that it was your book they'd borrowed and lends it to someone else and then loses track of it. The sister in law's friend who moves to a new country taking three of your precious books along and proceeds to completely lose touch with both you and the sister in law.

What does one do? Taking a cue from a friend, who's lost several books of her own, I began to write 'STOLEN FROM MANASI' in large, bold letters on the front page of all my books in an attempt to dissuade potential book predators. It didn't work. A friend's wife borrowed one such book three years ago and it vanished into near oblivion. This was one of my favourite books and it had been gifted by a dear friend, so it had that much more sentimental value attached to it. I tried asking for it politely after a longish time period had passed, definitely enough for the friend's wife to have read it three times over.
"I haven't even read it yet!" she laughed breezily.
"In that case, why the hell did you borrow it in the first place?" I asked. In my head of course, as I smiled politely and told her to take her time.
I asked again after some more time had elapsed. And again, the reminders getting less polite each time. I never got the book back. They moved to another city some time later and we lost touch. A few days ago I happened to be in the same city they were in and my friend invited us over for dinner. And there was my beloved book, bang in the center of the arty looking bookshelf, ensconced between a film magazine and a trade journal, gazing at me beseechingly. What happened next was bizarre. I politely asked the friend's wife if it was the same book she'd borrowed from me. She flatly denied it and said it was her own. What's more she had no recollection of ever having borrowed such a book from me. I asked if I could look at the book and opened it to the first page where my own handwriting and the words 'STOLEN FROM MANASI' awaited me. The friend's wife found this hilarious. She'd forgotten that she'd ever borrowed this book, forgotten that she'd ever had it all these years. The worst part? She hadn't even read it.

P doesn't get my frustration with the Book Predators. His attitude is, you can't really refuse point blank if someone asks to borrow a book. So you lend it and hope for the best. If you don't get it back, you can always buy it again. I disagree. It's not just about buying the book again. It's all the memories and the special moments associated with that one particular book. The book that accompanied you on your first train journey alone. The book that you bought to celebrate getting into b-school and that spent that first year with you in your hostel room. The book that you discovered, and later fell in love with, on a crowded, dusty shelf in the airport bookstore of a seaside town as you waited for a long delayed flight, while the rain Gods unleashed their torrential fury outside. A newly purchased book clinically bought as a replacement can never bring those memories back.

Its not like I don't fight for my books. There are some people to whom you can lend your books without a second thought. Then there are the others, who fall into the grey category; some of these people could be predators. I've been rude and refused to lend my books point blank. I've laid down conditions and told them the reason why. I've had to follow up and remind people to return my books. Sometimes it works and other times it doesn't. But it's always painful. People get offended and relationships get strained. And books still go missing. And until I find that elusive perfect solution I guess I must suffer. What about you? How do you guard your books against the Book Predators?

Summer Holiday

School's out! Well actually it was out almost a month ago, but the point is I'm writing about it now and not after the next school year has begun. Which, if you consider my track record, was not entirely an impossibility. The thing is, what with all the recent bai woes and the daily school run, life had become pretty darn hectic. Nikki's mother toddler group which we started when she was about fifteen months old had progressed from an hour, thrice a week, to one and a half hours, all five days a week and the timing had also shifted from a leisurely 11.30am to 10.00am, which is a whole lot more demanding when you live a good half hour away and have a toddler who likes to ponder on the various intricacies life throws up while chomping away at the morning meal for a couple of hours each day.

Most mornings thus saw me scrabbling though the two hours I had at hand after Nikki woke up to get self and child ready for school at breakneck speed, get aforementioned breakfast down Nikki's gullet at a pace that would put the most steadfast snail to shame, and cram some toast down my own throat before whizzing off to school. Needless to mention, Nikki would choose exactly half past nine, designated we-need-to-leave-NOW time, to bless her diaper, necessitating operation clean up and ensuring that we reached school just in the nick of time. Since the program we'd signed up for was a mother-toddler one, the one and a half hours we spent there everyday demanded equal participation from both me and Nikki and much vigorous moving-to-the-music and building sandcastles later we'd go back home to bath, lunch and nap time for Nikki and about two hours of downtime for Mommy. Except that the two hours downtime tended to bear an uncanny similarity to weekends; Sunday evening strikes before you've properly begun to savour the beginning of Friday night, and before I could park myself on the couch to vegetate or open that latest book, Nikki would be up, bright and chirpy and raring to go to the park. Some days there would be play dates or birthday parties to go to, and all in all, my post baby life was beginning to get almost as demanding as my pre-baby corporate one. Except, of course, that this time round I have a boss who is wayyyy more demanding!

I was quite looking forward to the onset of the summer holidays therefore; glorious, lazy days filled with endless hours of doing nothing and I was quite unprepared for the summer camp frenzy that routinely strikes most mums this time of the year. I got my first taste of it on the last day at school where a bunch of mums were earnestly exchanging notes about different summer camps and poring over brochures of the same. They were aghast when I told them I wasn't planning to enroll Nikki in one, with reactions ranging from 'you're compromising on developing a strong educational base for your daughter' to the more pragmatic 'you'll go nuts with her in the house all day', but I resisted the impulse to go check out the summer camps in the neighborhood. Not that I have anything against summer camps, I don't know enough about what goes on in them to really have a strong opinion for or against them, but I'm home this summer with Nikki and I don't see her losing out on anything by just enjoying the holidays at home, the way I used to when I was a kid. Besides she's just two years old and there's enough time for summer camps later, even though the average age for summer camp where I lives seems be to thirteen months, so going by that her educational base seems to be compromised quite a bit already!

We've had fun so far too, Nikki and I. Apart from a few weekend trips we haven't really gone anywhere so most days are spent in and around home. We spend the mornings either in the 'big' swimming pool or in Nikki's smaller baby pool at home, with her toy ducks, fishes and her paddling dog Pogo for company. If Nikki's not in the mood to be a water baby, we bring out the paints and shaving foam and play dough and muck around in the balcony creating various works of art. The only person who doesn't seem too happy about us honing our artistic skills is the maid who gets to clean the balcony when she comes around every afternoon. No surprise then, that she's recently announced a ten day trip for some 'sudden' wedding in the family. No problem, coz cleaning-up is Nikki's new found passion! Give her a sponge and a bucket and she can keep herself occupied for hours. We'd gone out for lunch recently to a bistro which had a little fountain in the seating area and it took all my persuasive efforts to keep Nikki from ripping off her tee and mopping the tables with the fountain water!
Evenings usually see us headed out to a nearby park or the zoo or a play date with some of Nikki's school friends and before you know it another glorious summer day is over and another one has begun.

All too soon summer will end and it'll be time for Nikki to go to school on her own, as she 'graduates' from the mother toddler program to playgroup. Time for me to let go a little. And so, this summer I just want to enjoy every little bit with my baby while she's still a baby. Enjoy the feeling of waking up in the morning with nowhere to go and nothing to do, soak in the early morning sun in the balcony while Nikki makes me a cup of tea in her kitchen set, go for an impromptu picnic to the neighborhood park when the mood strikes with banana chips and nutella sandwiches, luxuriate in long afternoon naps and spend hours in the mellow evening sun studying the interesting shapes clouds make. Here's to summer holidays then! How're you spending yours?

A 'once upon a time...' with a very happy ending!

Once upon a time, long long ago, in a far away land there lived a Young Girl who loved to read. Well, maybe it was 2003 and the land was Gurgaon, but the point is this girl really, really loved books. She also loved to write and in a distant past had written reams and reams of prose and poetry, but that love for writing had sort of got overtaken with a million other seemingly important things-to-be-done that had crowded up her life. Things like building-a-career and getting-ahead-in-life and climbing-the-corporate-ladder.

Once in a while the Young Girl did stop however to smell the roses. Or rather, in her case, since roses weren't that abundant in Gurgaon at the time, she stopped to read some books. Lots of books. For long hours into the night and whenever she could catch a quick break during a busy work day. In lunch hours and on the road and sometimes, when the book was particularly unputdownable, even in the office loo (just don't mention this to anyone okay? thanks). And on weekends. Oh those glorious, languorous weekends filled with hours and hours of reading.

At the end of one such particularly happy weekend, the Young Girl, feeling quite inspired by some of the tomes she'd read, said impulsively to her husband: "Someday, I want to write a book."
She half expected him to laugh off her statement but to her surprise he turned around and said, "Yes, you should. You write well. Why don't you do it?"
"I will...someday", the Young Girl laughed and went on with the rest of her life. But somewhere in her head the thought had firmly planted itself. Someday she would write a book. She had a very good idea of the sort of book it would be. It would be a funny book, but it would also be very romantic and it would capture several nuances of the corporate life the Young Girl lived and breathed every day. The Young Girl began to look at life with a different perspective. Every experience became a vignette that she could capture in The Book. A batty boss screaming because the font size in the sixteenth presentation of the day was light green and not deep purple stopped becoming a source of frustration and became an inspiration instead.
"I will write about this batty boss in The Book" she'd tell herself as she modified the font colour.

The Young Girl had a close friend at work and she confided her plans to write to her too. The close friend was most encouraging.
"You must write!" she urged "Sometimes when you speak, you're so animated, it's like watching a real-life version of Tom & Jerry! What fun if you can put some of those thoughts down in a book!" The Young Girl was most encouraged and her dream of The Book became stronger and stronger.

A few years later the Not-So-Young Girl had moved to a different city and a different job. A lot of things in her life had changed but some things remained the same. She was still busy with building-a-career and getting-ahead-in-life and climbing-the-corporate-ladder. She still had a Dream for The Book, and often, this dream helped her cope with some of the less than rosy realities life often threw her way. Then the Not-So-Young Girl went through a big life changing experience. She had a baby. Her life, or what remained of of it that hadn't turned topsy-turvy as lives often do when you bung a baby into the picture, began to revolve around the baby. She took a break from building-a-career and getting-ahead-in-life and climbing-the-corporate-ladder to focus on the baby. And that's when her husband reminded her about her Dream for The Book.
"Why don't you write the book now that you're on a break?" he asked "You may never get the chance again."

The Not-So-Young-Girl knew he was right. Now was the best time to begin. And so the Dream began to become a reality. She started writing her book. She wrote when the baby was asleep, in the afternoons, for long hours into the night, on weekends and holidays when her husband took care of the baby. And she realized that she was happier doing that than she had been for a long time. Suddenly, building-a-career and getting-ahead-in-life and climbing-the-corporate-ladder didn't seem so important any more.

She had her days of course. Days of self- doubt, severe crises-of-confidence, of feeling like a lost ship with the lighthouse nowhere on the horizon.
She would often wake up her husband with cries of "I don't know what I'm doing! What if I'm not a writer! What if nobody likes what I write! What if I don't even know how to write? What am I doing?!"
"Just write your book" her husband would tell her. "You're doing great. But I'm going to have to move to the guest room to catch up on sleep if you're going to make these 4am conversations a regular feature."

One day, at long last, The Book was finished! The NSYG (I'm getting carpal tunnel syndrome with all this typing, and I guess you're not exactly thrilled with reading that over and over are you?)was ecstatic!
"I've done it! I've written The Book!" she exulted.
"Fantastic!" said her husband, who'd read every single word himself and suffered inordinately through all her "I've written five more words! Read, read, read! What d'you think? Huh, huh, huh?"
"And now to get it published!" he said with a smile.
"Published" squeaked the NSYG "The Book you mean? I have to get it published?"
"Unless, of course, you want to get it pickled or bottled?" asked her husband wryly.

And so the NSYG, resisting the strong urge to curl up under a corner of her duvet, began the long drawn out task of getting The Book published. She approached a publisher she had dreamed of being published with, in some of her many wild day dreams, and sent them a synopsis of The Book. And waited. And badgered the husband with more whiny 4am pleas "D'you think they'll get back? D'you think they might be even remotely interested? Huh? Huh? HUH?"
"Relax, lets wait and see how it goes" her husband always replied calmly, even as he eyed the guest room earnestly.
A couple of weeks later the publishers replied. They liked what they saw, and could the NSYG please send the complete manuscript as soon as possible?
The NSYG promptly turned into an absolute nervous wreck and spent two feverish all nighters reading and re-reading and refining The Book. Finally, with her eyes feeling like buttons and fingers like jelly she sent out her manuscript.
And waited again. And waited some more. And had nightmares about the chief editor hating her manuscript at the end of which she'd wake up her husband on the verge of a near nervous breakdown. And had dreams about the chief editor liking the manuscript at the end of which she'd wake up her husband in a happy haze.
"Do you think she'll like it? What if she hates it? What will I do? My life will be over. Waahhh!!!"
"Hey you know what, she liked my book! She LIKED it! Oh crap, it was a dream! Oh crap! Waahhhh!"
And on and on. Her husband held her hand, and wiped her tears and assured her all would be well. He also moved into the guest room.
One day she got a call from the chief editor. She liked the book, would the NSYG like to sign a contract with them?

At this point the NSYG went into a happiness-cum-hysteria induced near-coma and the husband had to be roped in to take things further.
The NSYG could only think of one thing. The dream had come true. The Book was going to be published. Her 'once upon a time' had a happy ending. And she was the happiest girl in the world!

P.S. Er, P, do you think you might want to move back into our room from the guest room anytime soon?