...of libraries.

In my childhood, going out with parents was a rare treat. It was not often that my sister and I could accompany our parents to whose evers house they were visiting. However two families we visited very often were the Mookerjee family in Bhawanipur and another Mukherjee family on Theatre Road.

The Mookerjees of Bhawanipur were our close relatives and the huge four storied house abounded in cousins and uncles and aunts. This huge house had a library on the ground floor and this room was the most wonderous room for me. The library was a long, narrow chamber facing the West. Most of the upholstery was in green .... a dark moss green. The mullioned windows were the only breaks in the book lined walls. Rows and rows of shelves all laden with rows and rows of books. It was the closest I could get to the word 'infinity' at that very young age when I first entered the room. Books of all sizes to folio to duo-decimo. Most of them bound in leather, powdered and roughened with age and with use........ like autumn leaves on the winter floor of the woodlands. The library smelled liked the woodlands too, a musty slightly age-worn smell of paper and adhesive and printing ink. At one extreme end of the library stood a big green baize writing table, with a shaded table lamp. There used to be a few chairs scattered here and there. It is here in this library that I first read Corbett (The Man eater of Rudraprayag) and reveled in the description that Corbett gave of the Himalayas. I never can forget the greenery of the Himalayas as offered by Corbett and took the dark and green library to be the forests of Rudraprayag and half expected a panther to pounce on me from behind the curtains. I read many a book there. I asked for books and they were procured. I wanted to take them back to School with me. My uncle allowed it. Later I took books home. The uncles and aunts loved the idea that I wanted to read.!!!!

This library still exists. It is still in regular use. I still go there to meet my ageing uncles and aunts and cousins. These people are still there, and they are still as eccentric as ever. Even today a light 'supper' is served at 7pm after which the residents (most of them) 'retire' to the Library. To do what? To do Maths. Calculus, Integration, Vector, String Theory, Solid State are the topics under discussion. The oldest member is a 80 year old physicist of international repute, the others include a retired Chief Justice, a globe-trotting grand uncle, some young students who drop in every evening. Now there is a huge green glass board to write on plus a white-board to get 'modernised'. A completely insane family with totally whacky ideas on any subject under the sun.They do Maths after dinner (sorry, supper) for relaxation and recreation. It's leisure time activity with the old Garrard playing the most out of the ordinary opus 34 of Beethoven. An entirely scatty and eccentric family , but WOW ! what a eclectic collection of books.

The family allows me to borrow books. And I consider it to be an honour because no one, repeat NO ONE is allowed to take books out of the library. Any one can sit and read there. They keep it open for about 10 hours a day for students, scholars, book lovers, research workers etc. I am the only one to take books out.

The other house was on Theatre Road(may be Loudon Street). My Dads friend Reba Mashi used to live there. These people were extremely affluent and cultured people and I now suspect that the only reason Dad took me (and never my sister) there was because I maintained my best-behaviour act all the time. Here too the Library was on the ground floor overlooking a walled garden, with flowers of every colour. The garden had a swing on a large guava tree and I always took my book out to read on the swing. This reading-on-the swing I could not get everywhere (Yes, Raju and I read on the Sheldon House swings...). I loved this library with its pale cream and gold furnishings and tall shelves of books. The books here were not on Physics and Philosophy or Maths, but more mundane topics with the popular authors. I remember reading a Miss Read once....a slim version.......and it had seemed I was living out the piece of fiction.... the garden with all its flowers and bees and the warm sun...... straight out of Miss Read. I remember telling my Dad about it too. He didn't think much of Miss Read it appeared. I could sit on the swing or in the library and read for hours, but that was never to be. I had to always put the book back when the time came for us to leave. No one offered to lend it. I was too shy to ask. Later, much later, I bought some of these Fairacre series of Miss Read and missed the cream and gold library so !!!

This library at one end had a slightly raised platform with a Bluthner on it. I sometimes opened the piano to see the "Julius Bluthner, Leipzig" embossed in gold on the inside of the lid. I played it sometimes too, a few notes. Never for long, because I had to get back to my book, the swing (if the weather was fine). At times it was difficult to understand if the garden was an extension of the library, or was the library an extension of the garden. Where did one end? Where did the other begin? Both offered so much light and was so airy and so warm with the sun shining in. The fragrance of flowers and the soft rustle of the leaves blended so well with the smell of books and the rustle of a page turning.

To me this house was a wonder..... the beautifully done up library, the books, the enclosed garden, the swing and to top it all a grand piano !!!!

Such elegance. I miss it.