Last week I decided to settle and sort the books at home. It was a task that I had dreaded for quite a while but there was no avoiding it. The new books had been piling up for months and now it was time to arrange them with the old ones.
I started by taking out all books from the shelves. The pile that built up on the floor was huge- it was going to be a long day. There are two broad categories that I usually sort my reading material – fiction and non-fiction.
The non-fiction pile was much easier – starting from English Literature and History, I moved on to my favourite travel writers – Michael Palin, William Dalrymple and Paul Theroux. For some moments I was lost in the pages of “Chasing the Monsoon” - a whimsical but well written book about the Indian Monsoon. This was where I discovered the odd fact that the British in the hills of Meghalaya used to keep their dead embalmed in honey during the monsoon because to find dry land for burial was impossible!
Coming out of the stupor, I managed to rearrange the non-fiction. It was the fiction section that troubled me. In fact, all those books on the floor looked like they were waiting to ambush me. And they did.
My old editions of Louis L’Amour westerns were delighted to be out of their shelves – the Sackett family saga, the Sioux and Cherokee tribes, the Mojave desert all came flooding back to my mind. My grandfather had instilled in me a lifelong love for cowboy tales.
As the day wore on, I was lost in the exercise. Pamuk, Murakami, Vikram Seth, Jhumpa Lahiri and others ensnared me for the best part of the day. My investigative heroes Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot were there to help me sort out the conundrum. Slowly the pile on the floor diminished and I completed the task which was emotionally draining.
Among the books I found, there were those that had been gifted to me by my friends and well-wishers. I found their simple messages of appreciation and remembrance. To all those book-worms like me – I wish you luck when you too have to repeat this exercise in your homes. May you be blessed with a large library and infinite space so these memories can stay with you forever.
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