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The online reading debate has got a whole new twist with the launch of the HOW we take life’s most precious moments for granted–getting intoxicated by the fragrance arising from the characters sitting pretty on the shelves of our favourite book house, feeling the hardbound copy in our hands, rough and coarse, gulping the quick summary at the end, wonderstruck at the cover design though not quite getting it, adding it to our own collection, inscribing the date of purchase on the last page, in pencil, covering it in plastic paper, tugging at it till late at night, letting its warmth grow upon us, marking our favourite paragraphs, returning to them again and again, making notes in the margin, consuming the expressions, and later chewing on them, returning to it some years later, that old-book aroma making us nostalgic ... could go on and on.
And the reason that I could keep ranting on and on like an old lady getting the hint of a change of order, witnessing its surge and finally, wondering at an era gone by is because I have seen it happen in front of me. The art of letter writing on a letter pad, family good mornings over a newspaper with a chai, discovering a new word, earning access to the family dictionary, fascinated by a new word, consulting the encyclopedia kept in the library ... I have seen all of them meeting an e-death — without making a noise as they disappeared. Will books meet a similar fate too? E-books are already in circulation, especially in the young community but the reason for concern now is that the Kindle Wireless Reading Device was launched by Amazon a few months ago, bringing home the basic element that brought what they now call the era’ in the West. It is a reading device that helps you download a quantum of books, thus ensuring that you carry your e-library with you, wherever you go. It also means that you will no longer have to wait for your pet book to be shipped from across the seven seas before you could lay your hands on it, I mean lay your eyes on in this case! Though there are many in the trade who feel that conventional readers will remain loyal to the hardbound book, it is the people who found reading a boring, outdated phenomenon and computers the in-thing will be the ones lured by it. Mirza Afsar Beigh, owner, Midland Book Shop, Delhi, shares, "The hype about e-books is based on gimmicks and not actual readers. Old readers remain loyal as ever. However, it is only a small segment of the Internet- savvy young generation that is being lured by e-books. It is not affecting us because that segment anyways does not believe in buying books." A student from Gujarat, Dipendrasinh C. Jadeja, who had hardly ever gone to a book house in his entire life, shares his story, "I never thought I would ever read fiction until I came across an e-version on my computer. E-books are breaking a lot of boundaries because books that are not available at a place can be accessed online. Also, it’s not just about ‘pleasure reading’. A lot of academic books and foreign authors are also available in freely downloadable format, giving us access to knowledge like never before". Ajay Mago, publisher, Om Books International, terms it as a phenomenon of the West and doesn’t see it catching up in India. "The rage of e-books is pretty high internationally but not in India. The sales have not been affected here as the market for e-books is very different from that of hardbound books. People here are not reading books in the e-format because of the obvious hassles. I myself bought Kindle last year when I went to the US out of curiosity and the hype created. I just read 3-4 pages while on my flight but I found my eyes straining and the usual sensory pleasure of holding a book missing. There are many like me out there". In fact, the e-books are so popular in the West that they are fetching more money for the authors than the hardbound ones. They also became the reason of the legal battle between the publisher Random House and the family of the deceased author William Styron. Neel Kamal Puri, a well-known literary figure of Chandigarh, says, "If and when the phenomenon of e-books catches up, I am sure the publishers would start considering it as a vital point to be negotiated in their contracts with the authors. But right now, it’s just the few biggies who are making bucks out of writing; others cannot imagine earning their living out of just being an author". But is it just about economics? And we thought it was about literature! What about the essence of a work of art getting ruined? Say you do not remember a line by your favourite poet, you would normally dig up some books to find the right one, read the entire poem again to find the desired line. Now, imagine replacing it with a curt one-shot Control +F! "There is a charm of another kind to discover old, antique books by chance in a library. For example, I just found out a novel by Champa Mangat Rai which is a crime fiction based in our very own Lalru!" exclaims Puri. But then Prem Shankar Tiwari, Prabandhak, Gandhi Book Centre, Mumbai, brings a totally another angle to the debate. "I don’t mind bringing out e-books if they help us in our ultimate aim of spreading the message of Gandhi and his associates. Any means by which more and more people connect and learn the ideology is considered good by me. I have put a lot of material on Vinoba Bhave and others on my website which is getting a very good response. So, we might just take this leap some day". As if this was not enough, Mago brings up still another dimension to the debate – global warming. "With climate change gaining hype these days, cutting of trees is looked down upon by the society. People are concerned and e-books might gain points on the environmental front". Now, who would dare counter a point based on climate change? "Whatever said and done, I would be very sad if printed books were to go out of style", says Puri, underlining the essence. So would we be, madam. As a famous advertisement line would say – There is a convenience that money can buy, but for the experience there are the hardbound books!
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