{"id":276,"date":"2005-08-10T18:11:00","date_gmt":"2005-08-10T18:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/2005\/08\/of-books.html"},"modified":"2011-06-30T19:50:35","modified_gmt":"2011-06-30T19:50:35","slug":"of-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/2005\/08\/of-books.html","title":{"rendered":"Of books"},"content":{"rendered":"
My favorite hang-out place besides my home, and the back-yard is the local library. I don’t have to speak or listen, I can just read. Walls of books and magazines surround me, and I can check out as many as I want. The service is great and the librarian actually wants to help. Best of all : it’s free.<\/p>\n

An unending supply of books, is something I missesd sorely in India. Libraries are almost non-existent in India; there were some private local libraries but the collections were pitifully small, and the books old. Needless to say, as a student, I could not afford to buy books. Then I needed 5-6 paperbacks per week; pretty expensive stuff. Now, as I make up for lost time (so many books, so little time) I read, but ironically now that I have the resources, I don’t have as much time. What I have, I have scrounged from the dregs of a full schedule. And it’s mostly night-time reading, the more I read, the less I sleep.<\/p>\n

There is no special requirement you have to fulfill, to borrow books from a local library in the US. You just have to live in the local area, and (presumably) pay taxes. And they are utilized well; the local libraries I go to are almost always well-packed with kids and adults. These libraries are not hallowed portals of silence by any means, they exude a feeling of usability beside the subdued noise from the kid’s section. What a great service this would be, if available in India !<\/p>\n

Dilip D’Souza writes about libraries in this very interesting article<\/a>, and Vikram Sequiera write about his experiences at the Indian Bookshop in his blog post<\/a>. As for the libraries I agree with D’Souza – indeed they contribute to society, at the very least they contribute to your private amusement or entertainment. The Indian Book-shop I am not so sure about, a good resource yes, but affordable? That I am not so sure about. The last time in Delhi, I wandered around browsing. Looking at the prices, I wondered if the middle-class could actually afford these. And kids ? Maybe the ones with generous amounts of pocket-money. An average paperback (like say Enid Blyton or a P.G.Wodehouse) was from Rs.100 to Rs.500 , a little cheaper than what it would have cost in the US in dollars ($5-10). Compare that with relative pay-scales in both the countries, and books are still expensive in India.<\/p>\n

Since my philosophy on books is “read ’em and leave ’em”, the library concept fits in very well with my life. When I buy, it must be a book I totally loved and would probably want to re-read. However, sparse buying habits do not prevent me from browsing. I have looked for books at the roadside book-sellers in Connaught place, and the sprawling book markets of Old Delhi. Truth be told, I have still bought very little. But, oh the pleasure of browsing for books !<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My favorite hang-out place besides my home, and the back-yard is the local library. I don’t have to speak or listen, I can just read. Walls of books and magazines surround me, and I can check out as many as I want. The service is great and the librarian actually wants to help. Best of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"twitter_17000648_17000648":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-review"],"aioseo_notices":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"post-thumbnail":false,"sow-carousel-default":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"amodini","author_link":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/author\/admin"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"My favorite hang-out place besides my home, and the back-yard is the local library. I don’t have to speak or listen, I can just read. Walls of books and magazines surround me, and I can check out as many as I want. The service is great and the librarian actually wants to help. Best of…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":642,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276\/revisions\/642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}