Of books and book lovers
By R.C. Sharma

SOMEBODY has rightly said: A house without book is like a room without window". So, the value of books for an educated person is obvious from this statement.

Food is necessary for body. Similarly, we also need food for our mind. The best food for the mind is the reading of books. It has a joy of its own which, perhaps, nothing else can give. Reading gives us peculiar joy and we forget the cares and worries of life.

Many doctors prescribe to the victims of worry the daily reading of the celebrated American author Dale Carnegie’s wonderful and indispensable book: How to stop worrying and start living.

My love with books began from school days. I read novels and short stories and poems in Urdu of eminent writers like Krishan Chander and Sadat Hasan Manto, Sahir Ludhianvi’s Talkhian and ‘Tanhian’, Zafar’s Ghazlen and Faiz Ahmad Faiz’s Sham-e-Shehar Yaaran.

After schooling, when I reached college, I fell in love with English literature and it grew deeper and deeper. I cherished the poetry of Keats (especially his Odes), Shelley, Byron, Wordsworth, Coleridge, H.W. Longfellow, Alexander Pope’s "The Rape of the Lock", and Robert Frost, whose beautiful lines were favourite of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, and were found scribbled on a pad at his bedside after his departure from this mundane world. Many still recite these lines like a daily ritual: The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep. And miles to go before I sleep. And miles to go before I sleep.

Shakespeare’s tragedies — Hamlet, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Othello and King Lear — cast a spell on me. Hardy’s novels — Tess, Far from the Madding Crowd and The Mayor of Casterbridge, Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, Pride and prejudice and Mansfield Park, Thackeray’s Vanity Fair, D.H. Lawrence’s, Sons and Lovers, Rainbow and Tolstoy’s War and Peace and Resurrection left a deep impression on me.

There are big libraries in the world having invaluable ancient classics. The State Lenin Library, Moscow, is said to contain 35 million books, magazines, journals, documents, manuscripts, files of newspapers, sheet music and maps in 247 languages. As the country’s national book depository, it is 500 years younger than the Paris National Library, 100 years younger than the British Museum Library and over 50 years younger than the US Library of Congress.

Every village and every home in Russia has its own library, because people are fond of reading and love books. The Cambridge Library maintained by the reputed librarian Schofield contains "a 157-feet high tower for storing books and 40 miles of book-cases." A twentieth century marvel!

There is a popular story of Caliph Omar having destroyed the great library of Alexandria. It was a gigantic collection of old-world books. Caliph Omar said: "If these books contain only what is written in the Koran, they are superfluous; if ideas of the Koran, they are mischievous. In either case they ought to be burnt." And so he burnt the magnificent library. He was determined that no books except the Koran should exist in the world. Did he try to separate the grain from the chaff?

John Ruskin is one of the greatest book critics of modern times. His discussion on the subject of books is of great help in making the right choice of books. He says that the world’s books may be divided into (1) books of the hour and (2) books of all-time. Books of the hour may be either good or bad. A bad book of the hour must be a book of scandal or sensation. A good book of the hour is merely the pleasant, useful talk of a person with whom we cannot otherwise converse. Travel books and light fiction are all good books of the hour. A great book of all-times, however, is not "a talked thing." It is a "written thing." An immortal book, or a great book of all-time, is a perpetual source of strength and inspiration. Ramayana, Mahabharata, Bhagavadgita, Bible, Keat’s Odes, Wordsworth’s and Shelley’s poetry, Shakespeare’s tragedies, comedies and sonnets, Kalidas plays, Ghalib’s, poetry, Tagore’s Gitanjali et al are cases in point.

Book clubs and home library clubs in several countries of the world have become very popular with the people. These associations/clubs issue monthly or quarterly journals in which are published short notices of books with brief summaries, commentaries and public opinion. The books are sold to the members of the clubs only at a cheap rate. This helps the reading public in making good choice and in paying comparatively less price for an otherwise costly book. Sometimes, books are also given as gifts to the members.

A well-chosen book is doubtlessly the best of companions. Living friends are too living to be completely at our disposal. They quarrel with us, impose their views on us, and fight with us. Not so our ‘book-friends’. When life has given us a rebuff and the world looks cold and uncharitable, a well-chosen ‘book-friend’ will offer us all the balm we need. Alexander the Great used to keep a copy of Homer always under his pillow. Field Marshal Montgomery loved to read the life of Cromwell. Pitt the Younger’s greatest reverence was for his ‘book-friend’ Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations.

Bacon said in his famous essay Of Studies: "Some books are to be tasted; other to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested."

Books are the goldmines of art, literature, science and information treasure. They are our true and constant companions. They are richer than any king’s treasure.