Please, sir. May I have a kilo of books?

I kid you not, boys and girls. Here’s what the ad with a black borderline in the Mumbai Mirror of Wednesday, 13 March 2013 (page 3, top left hand corner), said. And, I quote verbatim:

BOOKS BY WEIGHT

New & Pre-owned Books

Buy Books by the Kilo.

Rs.200/- per Kilo for Children’s Books & Mills & Boon, Rs.100/- per Kilo for all other Books.

Minimum Purchase of ½ Kilo and In Multiples of 100 Grams there-of [sic]

All subjects included

One million books will be displayed during the course of this exhibition.

Venue:

Shri Sunderbai Hall

Nathibai Thakersey Marg, Opp. Churchgate Station

Behind Income Tax Office, Mumbai 400002

Tel: 95942 21040

Date: from Wed. 6^th to Sun. 24^th March 20013.

Time: 10 am to 8 pm

Sundays Open

CREDIT CARDS ACCEPTED

YOU CAN GET 9 LADYBIRD OR 7 PICTURE

BOOKS IN Rs.200/- A KILO

YOU CAN GET 4 FICTION OR 1 COFFEE

TABLE BOOK IN Rs.100/- A KILO

*We do not provide plastic bags please bring your own carry bags.

My guess? A lawyer (if not full-fledged, then an intern) – not a copywriter – wrote the text. (S)he lacked finesse, forgot to proofread (“there-of”). Also, please mark the euphemistic legalese (“pre-owned” for “second hand”, a usage borrowed from car trade). At least, they told a fair amount of truth if not the whole truth. I noticed that some of the books on display had on the front fly page a borrower’s record sheet, a familiar presence in library books. Also the pages of a lot of books were on the verge of yellowing.

The exhibition space was fairly well packed, a rare occurrence on a weekday afternoon. The shoppers were mostly young, enthusiastically lugging their shopping baskets behind them, jostling, pushing, jamming the aisles as most Indians are wont to do. A majority were buying mass market fiction, children’s books and computer-related books. In the former category, the best of the chaotically scattered lot seemed to be Grisham and Crichton.

As for me, after two hours of plowing through the tumult, I settle for three books, two hard-bound and one paperback. The first one, Molly Weir’s Spinning Like A Peerie (Lomond Books, Edinburgh, 1999), is the paperback sequel to Trilogy of Scottish Childhood. http://bit.ly/10T508G">http://bit.ly/10T508Ga>.  

The second book to catch my eye and fancy was Joseph Roth’s The White Cities: Reports From France 1925-39 (Granta Books, London, 2044). Roth was a hotshot German newspaperman who quit the Weimar Republic and relocated in France. His collection of essays (or, belles lettres, in deference to their vintage) would be worth reading, I thought.

My third purchase was a quirky collection of misprints, typos and other howlers: Martin Toseland’s A Steroid Hit The Earth (Portico Books, London, 2008). None of my esteemed fellow shoppers would have spared a glance for my eclectic and weird choices, I’m sure. Well, well, well. C’est la vie.

My rich haul did not cost much. Tipping the weighing scale at 1.2 kg, it left my wallet lighter by Rs.120/-. The other shoppers in the cashier’s queue had much heavier loads to carry and pay for. This masterstroke of exhibition marketing was the brainwave of Butterfly Books. Only someone who deals in books by the container loads could have thought of selling them by weight. Other booksellers ought to follow suit with suitably modified baits.  

Time-barred jokes anyone? (Their use-before date is long past.)

You'll have to go when your time comes, common sense tells you. That's wisdom learned from experience and observation. Even jokes are not exempt from this fate, it suddenly dawned on me when I read the following jokes from an old dog-eared joke book this evening.

A veteran bank robber much hassled by his wife's demand for cash tries to placate her: "Just wait till the bank closes, dear, you shall have all the cash you need."

Then, there is the much harassed lawyer who keeps calling home and finds the line busy. So, he summons his secretary, tells her to take down a telegram for his daughter. "Send it by express wire," he tells the secretary. "Get off the line this instant, Sue," his telegrams reads.

With the advent of ATM, the first joke works no more. The second one was funny in the Jurassic era much before email, cellular phones, SMS. No such luck now, though.

R.I.P.

The Monk who sold his Ferrari.

No, I’m not talking of Julian Mantle, the millionaire lawyer turned enlightened monk. No, I haven’t read the book. Yes, I’ve heard of it from people who swear by it. I’m merely referring to the idea embodied in the six words. “Enlightened monk” = Sage, wise person. “Sold his Ferrari” = Got rid of his expensive possessions. I’m sure he had acquired the made in Italy gas guzzler long before he became “enlightened”. Had he been wise to begin with, he would never have acquired it in the first place. Think of all the headaches he would have spared himself by doing so. No drain on his bank account caused by enormous fuel bills, service expenses, insurance, chauffeur’s salary, fines for traffic law violation, the aftermath of accidents, and so on and so forth. Why not just use public transport or hail a cab? Or, take a walk when you’re not in a hurry. But if you’re a Somebody like the aforesaid JM (or think you’re a Somebody), then you must reach the court house in a Ferrari. Else, people will think you’re a nobody. It's all about validation. You must not look small in people’s eyes. Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion. http://www.chennaionline.com/festivalsnreligion/religion/2005/religion941.asp. Or, the famous story of how Sita had to undergo a trial by fire just to prove her purity after her return from Lanka to Rama’s subjects, led by a washer man who, for maybe professional reason, was fond of washing dirty linen, real or imaginary, in public. I recently heard a friend of mine calling over his cellphone one of his associates and telling him that he would like to disassociate himself from him. Because he, his associate, was picking fights at their common workplace, the home of a sage where a daily satsang happens. This apparently was hurting his, my friend’s, image. When I asked him why he was doing this, he explained his pre-emptive step using what amounted to the Caesar’s wife thesis. Incredible! Coming back to the point I was making earlier, less is more. The fewer possessions you have, the fewer worries you have, the more peace you have. This is not spirituality. This is pure common sense. I saw my father who was a successful criminal lawyer practising it in his later life without realising what he was up to. So stupid of me, I realise now. A bit too late in the day.