Battling the shadow

For many years, I fought valiently for a noble cause, resisting the charge of the internet against good old books.

I grew up on books, and before I knew, they became an addiction. Later they proved to be more addictive than all the dry and liquid stuff consumed at high school and college days. In fact, to think about it, they were soporific (for the uninitiated, that’s sleep inducing) while the books proved to be stimulating.

To me, a large part of the recipe of the stimulation lied, apart from the content, in the process of reading, feeling, touching, and caressing. In fact, a new book often felt like a woman, a new woman in life. You have to handle her carefully, keep your senses open. Because you are reading her for the first time, you have to go slow, sometimes read between the lines. You feel her for the first time; her smell is new to you.

Perhaps, the best way to read her is to go to bed with her, once the initiation is over. Then you lie down with her, hold her really close to your bosom (ok eyes for the older, cant one ever get a little romantic?) and delve deep into her, loosing and finding yourself.

And Chris De Burgh after that, "And then, when it's over, I have tender hands, To hold you through the night, darling, My tender hands will hold you through the night."

I held on to the books and tried to breathe solace to my sad, womanless college days. And then, she changed into her new avatar.

The Internet came, saw and took prisoners. With the rest of the things, books changed to e-books. Reading, like dating, became virtual, open, subject to scrutiny, and untouchable (not in the Indian parlance though, that’s caste system and a whole hog of colonial baggage under the mattress). You no longer walk into a bar (read bookstore), spot her at the corner, eye her for sometime and then tentatively approach her. If you are lucky and skillful enough, conversation rolls on and might turn out to be an all nighter, testing all your skills. Now, you meet over the Internet, believe in what she says about herself ( and vice versa), and both try your best to convert the virtual into realty. And if you are lucky and willing to stoop that low, you two might even make out virtually. UGH.

Reading, no longer is lazing around with that book, carrying it with you all the time, going back to it again and again.. Now you google/yahoo/whatever on the internet, locate it, and read it on the screen, sitting bolt upright all the time. Your posture during work and pleasure becomes identical. You become a robot, a machined baboon. Days of lovemaking is over.

I, like many, revolted. I hung on to my paper books and perhaps even tried to justify my computer ignorance/aversion with my distrust to e/virtual reading materials. So while I saw my friends gathering information in a jiffy, I ploughed through the pile of books. E books were a strict no no, and I used the Internet mainly for sending mails. I felt like a crusader.

Then I changed job and my new job entailed a lot of use of the internet. Soon, I realized what is known as the information superhighway. I mean, I wanted to know about Impressionism and Monet in particular, and Wikipedia zindabad (that’s long live in Hindi). I wanted to know about the major poets of the romantic era, and I can find a list of them along with a list of their selected poems in a jiffy. Now I can take a printout of them and find them in my bookstore. I no longer have to rummage through the whole hog or seek help. That’s how I find the Internet useful. References, cross references and more references. I now use the Internet as the ultimate begetter of lost treasure and sunken ships.

I have struck truce. And it feels good. I still go to bed with a book, but now I know, at least have a vague idea about my latest valentine.

The battle is over.

posted by Ranjan