The first time that Kashyap went to the district library, a sense of discomfort and timidity overwhelmed him. An unease caused, perhaps, by the shut-in, musty smell, darkness and a strange fear that seemed to reach out from old, stuffy, book-lined cabinets….
It was raining—a fine genteel rain—and a single dim yellow bulb that danced on an extended cord cast strange patterns and shadows on the wall beyond.
This fear was a strange taste, but one that he knew well. This was a despair remembered from the fringes of his childhood—and once again he was a lad back in his village, trailing his friends when they'd visit their haunts by the giant boulders on the dry riverbed . . . His friends would race ahead and he'd be left behind, by turns afraid and awed at the majesty, the vastness, the visual treat . . . yes, this despair and awe—it was truly a remembered sense.
Behind dusty, glass-lined panes, large tomes seemed to be staring wide-eyed, calling out to him with promise. His feeble attempts to open one stubborn cabinet or another didn't work, and he sought help from a quiet peon sitting in a corner.
He was dismissed with a gesture—speak to madam . . .
Just ahead, several cabinets had been arranged to form an alcove—no, a nook. A lady stood with a hefty book by a window.
This was the first time Kashyap met Miss Joshipura.
Like a statue that has been waiting, stock-still, over centuries perhaps, waiting for a lifesaving magic code, these words seemed to send lifeblood racing through her veins. She quickly moved to a cabinet—and these cabinets must be loyal, the way pets are—for they quickly responded to a mere touch, a hint of her delicate, thin-as-a-reed fingers.
A feast of books, expansive, all displayed for his reading pleasure . . .!
"Durgashankar Shastri. Here, take this—A History of the Vernacular Society . . . Any ras in the Rasmala?"
She moved swiftly to another cabinet, and after a few futile jumps toward the ledge, dragged and stepped upon a stool, then just as quickly leaped down with a thick, dust-covered tome.
By now Kashyap's hands were full with books of various shapes, sizes, and vintages.
It was hot and musty, fine beads of perspiration marked her brow. A thin film of dust powdered her face, and she looked like a plough-wielding farmer in his field . . . tired, dusty, in her element. Her zest was that of an owner of the soil, standing in lush, fertile fields, mistress and overseer of all she surveyed.
Miss Joshipura looked a little lost as she followed him to the porch, staring at him.
Now, about books Kashyap had mixed feelings, but strong ones all the same—a strange admixture of worry, guilt, fear, and overriding ownership. A fierce sense of scorching ownership. The mere memory of a few books would bring him to his knees. He derived a pleasure from these, rich and almost sensual, as his hands moved over the words on a page . . . he took pride and delight in clothing his books in stiff brown paper.
He had strong memories of his childhood home, the hours spent in the dusty, cluttered third-floor attic, reading long-abandoned books, sitting hemmed-in by old chests, storage bins and relic storage cases, reading by the scant light that filtered in through a narrow slit. This was where he'd first lived the breath and warmth of books.
Once, after the clerk had taken his signature and Kashyap had arranged his books in two discrete stacks in readiness for leaving, a request was made.
"Please sit," Miss Joshipura said.
Kashyap was irritated at his bad manners, and hid a smile. This abrupt manner was an old habit, one that his mother often nagged him about. He could never linger over social chit-chat, small talk, niceties—how are you . . . do come over . . . Reluctantly leaning back in his chair, as if he were meeting a stranger, he asked, "Kem cho? Majama?"—Hello, How are you doing?
Miss Joshipura sat still, staring out of the window at nothing in particular.
Before Kashyap could refute this, another dilemma . . .
Miss Joshipura was rubbing her eyes when Kashyap left, she'd put away her glasses, and was smiling . . .
He'd unearthed an array of books, a treasure trove, and was seated at the corner table on the third floor, engrossed in making detailed notes, opening one book, rummaging through another, and glancing at yet one more, when he was disturbed by an insistent bee-drone that hummed close to his ear.
Miss Joshipura was shielded by her castle of cabinets, and she clutched a container.
"Not reading, just flipping through . . . look at this . . ." she said, and placed before him a hefty volume. Seventeenth-Century London.
Kashyap thought, Well, Miss Joshipura, isn't that a good thing, you've found something you'd like to read . . . but why are you troubled by this . . . what made you cry . . .
"Well, for someone like me, even viewing it from a distance is fortunate. I've only heard people say that first one has to see with an inner eye. Then experience it. And then live it. If all this happens and even then only sometimes does one understand. One internalizes, breathes it in." The last step isn't compulsory, he thought.
When he stood up, Miss Joshipura fluttered her eyelashes and got to her feet, as a hint of dimples and laugh lines played hide-and-seek all over her face. An important declaration seemed to be struggling to announce itself.
"No one reads, these days. No one touches a book! What should be done about this? How will this do?"
11.15 PM, his watch showed. That was late for a call, perhaps something was the matter.
Her tone sounded different set against the silence of the night. Separate from, and at odds with the short, pale, washed-out person it belonged to. Her voice seemed to pierce through the ether of its own accord.
A name matters, hence it was shared, though there was little point.
When a refugee, broken and lost, seeks warmth and shelter with a midnight knock—one does not question him—It is late, what brought you here! No. He is ushered in, given a place to rest, a compassionate pat on the shoulder . . .
Fortunately, formality works when all else fails.
I asked enthusiastically, "How are you doing?"
Kashyap remembered their earlier conversations, but he didn't probe.
Now he was at a loss for words.
If he were asked, "What are you reading?" he'd better say chemistry or something general, and while he was deliberating over these replies, the line was disconnected, just as abruptly.
He was taken aback. When one needs to say something which one cannot quite express, such things happen. It was only later when he tried to sleep and could not, that he understood the words that had been left unsaid.
A trembling fear, and a midnight phone call.
No language could be as clear, as sharp.
Then he'd use this excuse to ask her about a fairy tale, or a half-forgotten line from a poem.
In the dreamlike zone in which Ba lived, she found it easy to handle these kinds of questions . . . nothing was ever difficult, or complex, or confusing. The mix-and-match ingredients for a story or dream were close at hand. She'd clear her throat and begin, and they'd talk, though they were in different rooms. The way two children communicate, using a bit of string for a telephone. A dialogue would unfold.
Once again, he was tempted to recreate the magic spell of those stories. Ba, there is a person—pale, washed-out, and thin as a reed . . .
He gave up trying to frame these statements into questions, and tried to sleep.
In the old part of the city, past several detours, wrong turns and missed lanes, he finally found the house, right at the end of an old and winding stone-paved lane. A broken door, quite off its hinges, greeted him; it was difficult to imagine that this was an entrance to a human habitat.
One could read the history of the building's ownership in the physical imprint it had left on it.
Originally, it must have been the residence of a wealthy owner.
Then the home of not-so-well-off relatives.
After which it became the habitat of the pious poor.
This is what he was telling himself when Miss Joshipura peered from behind the door.
A thick rope hung by a steep staircase—one could clutch this to clamber to the rooms above. Two chairs and a bed adorned the room. He sat on an old-fashioned swing and looked around. Where did the hostess disappear?
In the conspiratorial silence of the walls he could sense a redeeming finality. The long, winding road had given up, reached a stubborn end, and had dried out.
Now Kashyap could spot the disoriented smile and the black glasses.
A temple in ruins, ten statues stand unworshipped.
A cow, goat, and snake live together.
How could there be room for dissonance in this sea of shuttered calm?
A grimace swept across Miss Joshipura's face every now and then, her eyes seemed to stretch in a strange manner behind those cover-all glasses. That, perhaps, was a smile.
She pushed a tattered curtain aside, and went to the kitchen.
Kashyap waited patiently for the sentence to be completed. Then he realized that the announcement of the name had no connection whatsoever with any verb, or adjective or action, it was complete in itself.
Quite as abruptly, an offering was thrust in his face.
"Do taste this!" Pushing him a steel bowl Miss Joshipura walked away just as abruptly as she'd walked in.
The gauntlet of conversation was picked up again.
Kashyap thought—yes, all this is children at play, and what you babble makes little difference to who you are. At your command I too can deliver rapid-fire, immaterial, disjointed, and learned discourses.
The German-silver tea cup smelled strongly of ginger, basil, and several such additives. He had just begun to sip, when the ancient kitchen curtain was swept aside to reveal a walking statue with the same features as Miss Joshipura. Quite unseeing, a stony-faced robot walked past to exit through the door opposite.
He finished his tea, and brought this visit to a close. He stood up to take leave, and Miss Joshipura escorted him out, full of unasked questions.
After this visit, Kashyap swung up that cave entrance twice, and met the shadows that lived in that dark cave.
About four times books were exchanged or—truth be told—returned, and this required visits to the district library.
After all this reading, he'd written a small essay on Jain Gurjar poets.
Now the train of books moved in the opposite direction, and in this manner the accounts in Miss Joshipura's issue register were evened out, until they tallied one day.
In much the same manner that a grazing animal, wistful-eyed, is led back from lush fields to dark shuttered sheds, Miss Joshipura's questioning gaze, too, held a million unanswered questions.
Doesn't any other subject interest you?
Don't you want to open up any more rooms of books, destroying a beehive that long rested there, explore the rich treasures hidden away in umpteen dust-lined cabinets?
There are many magical books here.
There are many more that can move a man—or two—to tears, to his knees, beseeching for grace.
Among a big city's advantages is that a man can be found if he so wills it. You are little likely to run into him perchance, at the temple or by the lakeside.
No one turned up demanding a return of imaginary books—neither at Kashyap's home nor at his college.
At the bus stop around the corner no one sat quietly, wiping away a flood of tears.
No one ambushed him from a tree, blocking his way.
Nor did he stumble upon a trembling shoulder some day in the dark.
Pravinsinh Chavda is an established author in Gujarati, with six short-story collections and a novel to his credit. A literary autobiography and a travelogue have also been well appreciated. A few of his stories have been translated into Hindi and Marathi. He has been a member of Gujarat Public Service Commission and has worked in the Gujarat Educational Services, prior to which he taught for about a decade at the undergraduate level. He began writing when he was still at school and about fifty of his short stories and essays have been published in reputed Gujarati magazines.
Mira Desai writes, works, and lives in Bombay, with a day job in pharmaceuticals. Her translations have been featured in 91st Meridian, Indian Literature, Pratilipi, Muse India, Calque and The Brooklyn Rail, and await publication elsewhere. As a writer of fiction, she has contributed to the Birmingham Arts Journal, Six Sentences, Celebrate Bandra, and the California Writers Club newsletter. She is a member of the IWW, the Internet writing workshop.