40. Books in the Boondocks...

I’ve been associated with the Asiatic Society of Mumbai, almost four decades – first as a book lover, a reader and then as a member of its Managing Committee. 

For more than 12 years I was also the convenor of the Periodicals Committee, entrusted with the   selection of the magazines, newspapers and journals. It had been a very enriching experience interacting with so many great minds. 

Much before the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, the Literary Society of Bombay was founded by Sir James Mackintosh on 26 November 1804 with the intention of promoting useful knowledge, particularly connected with India. When the Royal Asiatic Society was established in London in 1823, the Literary Society of Bombay became affiliated with it and was known as the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society since 1830. 

Now funded by an annual grant from the Central Government of India, in 1954, it was separated from the Royal Asiatic Society and renamed the Asiatic Society of Bombay. So, the institution is more than 200 years old, unparallel in fact.

Altogether the Society library has a collection of over 200,000 books, some rare. Like, Mountstuart Elphinstone, governor of Bombay and President of the Society from 1819 –1827 had gifted to the Society one of only two known original copies of the manuscript of the Divine Comedy, the poem composed by Dante in the 14th century. 

In 1930s, the Italian government under Benito Mussolini wanted the manuscript calling the book a national treasure. He even offered the Society one million pounds but the Society turned down his request. The Society also has the manuscript of Shahnama of Firdausi written in Persian. 

It was Dr Aroon Tikekar, the well-known scholar, journalist and author who first introduced me to this great organization and also later brought me to the Managing Committee. 

He was also the editor of Loksatta, Marathi newspaper of the Indian Express Group, for over a decade (1992-2002) so in a way I can also claim that he was a colleague. Fluent in Marathi and English he authored over 20 books in Marathi as well as in English. His personal library, which I was lucky to see, was a treasure trove.

Anyway, after him, when Mr. Sharad Kale was the president, during one of our Managing Committee meetings, he shared a letter written by Mr. S. Shankar Menon, who served as the 4th National Security Advisor of India to the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. He is a retired Indian diplomat and statesman of Indian Foreign Service. He became a member of the Asiatic Society Bombay, when he was quiet young. 

Mr. Kale himself was an IAS officer of 1963 batch, and served as the municipal commissioner of Mumbai from 1991-1995. It was a personal letter between two friends but the message it carried was really something to talk about.

He had titled the mail dated Wed, October 9, 2013 at 9:19 PM as “Books in the Boondocks”, literal meaning is ‘books in a remote rural area’. In the letter Mr. Menon is talking about those days when the library used to send books in a packed Bandooks (an iron box). So the title is really fantastic – Bonndocks and Bandooks.

Read on the letter in full -  

Osmanabad, recaptured by Police Action from the Nizam not all that long ago, had a very curious species as their first IAS Assistant Collector in 1964. Someone who let the strains of Italian Opera float over the small town of 15,234, well into the early hours of the morning. 

Wise heads wagged and said, he must be a Christian. Good if there is trouble between communities.

Benianimo Gigli came with Brahms First and Beethoven's Sixth in my one tin trunk on the top of a bus from Aurangabad, good old 33rpm's on a scratchy turntable bought with my Provident Fund when I left after a year with the Railways.

Books, as always, were a problem. The Bible at hand was the Assistant Collectors' Manual nearly a hundred years old, which had many a sapient thought. Do not be sarcastic with your juniors for they cannot reply. Do not be rude to your seniors for they may reply only too well.

The wise Brit who penned his thoughts, released recently in a spanking new edition, also suggested, do not be angry if you see something written by a subordinate that sounds rude. He may not understand the use of English like you do. 

Then the clincher of c 1875... When you come to the State, join the Asiatic Society. They send you twenty books at a time packed in a wooden box which came to Manmad by broad gauge, to Aurangabad by metre gauge and then on to Yedsi from where hunderkeris, rara avis of distinct plumage in flowing robes, trundled the box in hand carts or other mysterious ways to my doorstep in Osmanabad.

The world was indeed my oyster. Every time the magic wooden box was slid open, there was many a pearl inside. Poems from Eliot to memorise and recite as I rode on a horse to villages, or mumble in an open courtyard while sunning on a Sunday. 

All of Marcel Proust in the Scott Moncrieff translation, Homer, Gibbons, anything that was fancied, noted down in a list and posted to the distant library.

Since I was quite good at tennis and there was a playable court with an opponent in pajamas who was also the President of the town Municipality as also a wizened trader in a sparkling dhoti, I asked the Willingdon Club in Bombay for a Marker. They did not reply. 

On the other hand, The Asiatic was phenomenally punctual with the to and fro of books in wooden boxes. Sealed into cloth and stitched as though the Crown Jewels were in transit.

The Sub Divisional Magistrate dispensed justice... or as a close colleague said of my days in Osmanabad, dispensed with... from an ancient court. Outside were two huge banyan trees from which Meadowes Taylor hung the Thugs. Lucky Thugs, I thought for their quick exit. 

Here in the sulphrous heat when outside birds fell dead out of the sky, adipose lawyers with flowing beards argued in Urdu, the next generation in Marathi and the spry young ones in English. All endlessly, to impress clients behind. Above the ancient cloth and tassled punkah stirred, moved somewhere by a peon with a rope tied to his toe.

One such blazing afternoon, a sparrow sat on my shoulder. Visions of Jehangir in his full glory swam through the haze and the heat. I still thought fondly of the quickly departed Thugs and ordered every book on the subject. Bentinck and William Leeman, as we all know, are mentioned in every historical despatch but Meadows Taylor's monumental work in Central India is little talked about. 

Asiatic has a reputation for both elegant and strenuous research and I on books trundled across agro climatic zones, became a huge beneficiary. In the shadows of ancient foliage, recently felled for a spanking sports stadium.

There is a lovely Thugs story. Deciding to hit back, they energised the tribals to hit back and kill the Collector. The murderers waited in the ravine, still extant, below the tennis court on a quiet Sunday at the Officers' Club. They would strike as soon as the Set was over. A ball boy noticed and told the Assistant Collector who was playing with his chief. He kept the score even... 6 all, 7all, 8 all.. until the Superintendent of Police, rushed in to save all lives, even as the game teetered into the dark.

Many a lonely night in dak bungalows, after writing judgements of cases heard under a petromax that had to be pumped every now and then to keep the blue effulgence going. Books from the Asiatic was more than the sustenance of chilly laden curries for dinners. 

My misspent youth until then, took on a patina of congress with some of the best minds ever. I had slithered into administration by coming first in the Essay during entrance exam skirmishes. Now with twenty books at a go, to be exchanged at whim and impulse, the mind was fully charged for the greater battles ahead.

All romances have to end. Exotic creatures of the Peace Corps began to arrive with a Five Foot Shelf as decreed by JFK. With the best of contemporary writing at hand, the medieval splendours of the Asiatic drifted to a comma, a semi colon.

Finally, a huge question mark. On a visit to the old lady recently, I was reminded by a small, fat peon, an immensely knowledgeable, perpetual civil servant that I had not returned two magazines borrowed ten years ago.

Quietly had flowed a great and brilliant tradition of books in wooden boxes on handcarts over dusty roads, now replaced presumably by online tomes a click away.

Give me any day the anxious wait for the hundekeris in the boondocks. They brought books for succour like the skirl of bagpipes at the Relief of Lucknow. The Assistant Collectors of this day try to fashion paperless offices and read on Kindle. I sigh with envy for my own days of the printed page, delivered from so far, with so much love and affection.”

Now can you imagine the kind of book lovers we had?

And how the library was functioning despite so many logistical issues?