A question unasked…

Today, Dhubri grabs headlines for the wrong reasons. This town in Western Assam, within shouting distance of the Indo-Bangladesh border, is, as I write, curfew bound. Ethnic clashes which boil in the surrounding areas have spilled over to this town, with killings, pillage and arson happening at intervals.

Sitting in Guwahati, 265 kilometres and a whole world away, I worry. My mother’s people live there, and telephone calls after every fresh report of violence have become mandatory. And though I pray for the people living there, I worry, also, for the town itself. In this scenario of setting ablaze shops and homes, what will remain? Will the old landmark buildings, already dilapidated because of neglect, go up in flames? Will the windows of homes belonging to perceived “other” communities be smashed? And shops? What about those easy targets, those delightful little places where one could buy all manner of things that have long vanished from other places even in this state itself? Dhubri is one of the few places left on the planet where one can buy a little tin boat with a place for a candle stub which, when lighted, can propel the craft around a tub of water. Though not a rich town, its people, even now, have a wealth of time. Whichever community they belong to – and Dhubri’s citizens come from several of them – they are mostly people who love to talk, and while away their time in adda. And in reading.

One of the benefits of living in a border town is that most people are bi-, tri-, or even quadrilingual. Certainly, the educated lot are omnivorous readers, grabbing works in Asomiya, Bangla (from across the border or from West Bengal), Hindi, Bodo, and English. No wonder the bookshops of the town stock books in a melange of languages. And even TV hasn’t managed to erode the tastes of those who grew up without it.

If this is how it is with lovers of books today, one can well imagine how much stronger the “reading habit” must have been in the pre-TV, pre-internet era of the early seventies. At that time, just before Assam was fragmented into several States, we lived in Shillong, its capital. Our schools and colleges encouraged reading and we had all become avid readers. The bookshops stocked a wealth of Enid Blytons and other such fare, which we read with relish. And yet, throughout the year, I would eagerly look forward to the three-month long winter holidays, when we would go down to the “plains” of Assam and visit relatives across the valleys. Dhubri, my grandmother’s place, was a must-visit, with my mother, brother and me spending at least a month in her large, rambling house, while my father returned to his duties in the capital after depositing us there.

One of the first things my mother did while there, was visit the shops. Saris, which she favoured over mekhelasadors, were cheaper there than in Shillong. And each visit to the market would include a stop at the famous Mona Ghosh sweetshop, and then to one of the bookshops lining the streets.

In those days, the international border with the then East-Pakistan and later Bangladesh, was very porous. Hawkers from across the border brought all manner of things to homes, ranging from lipstick to Jamdani saris. The one thing they did not bring however, was books. In any language. My mother, who loved Bangla books with a passion, always looked forward to her “home” visits. For in the Westernized capital of Assam in those days, authors such as Sankar and Syed Mustafa Siraj were not available freely then. In any case, her sisters and cousins in Dhubri always bought books and such magazines as Ultoroth and Prasad and saved them for her to read during the long, quiet afternoons when the town retired for its siesta. To the gentle cooing of pigeons that nested in the eaves of that house, my brother, mother and I would sprawl on the large bed and immerse ourselves in books.

There were several good bookshops in the Dhubri of the time. My mother and aunts would browse in several, perhaps buying a Desh here or a Nabakollol there. My brother and I would be part of the group. I would look at the pictures of filmstars in the latest Ultoroth, admiring the bouffant hairstyle and kajal-lined eyes of Madhabi Mukherjee and other Bangla actresses as I waited patiently for them to finish. For I knew that the last stop of the evening would be my favourite place: Students’ Library, which was neither a library nor a place where only students were welcome. It was a bookshop which the literate townspeople frequented. Indeed, book lovers came from relatively distant places to stock up on tomes from here.

Students’ Library in those days was of course nothing like the plush bookstores of today. Even by standards of the day, it was a dark and somewhat dusty place because books were piled high, shelves and heaps and stacks of them blocking windows, and stopping the light from entering through the doorway. As for the dust – it was endemic. Students Library was smack on what was then D.K Road, (now the Guru TegBahadur Road) one of its main thoroughfares. The breeze from the Brahmaputra— vast at this point— and the Gadadhar, between them wrapped the town with water and sandy beaches on three sides and brought grit into the town. Throughout the day, and well into the evening, the dust of numerous pedestrians walking past kept entering the shop, defying the attempts of several of the assistants who flicked cloth dusters around at intervals. Along with the dust came the tinkle of cycle and rickshaw bells, and the conversations of the townspeople walking past.

The thing about Students’ Library was that it stocked books and magazines in several languages. This was what made it different from the other bookstore, Silk House, which stocked only English titles. (Why was it called Silk House when it sold books? Nobody ever asked that question… it seemed a natural thing, and was accepted unquestioningly). Obviously, in a town where the English-reading public was never large, Silk House was doomed to fail. And fail it did, in a few years. Sometimes my aunts would take my brother and me there to choose a book, but somehow, the place was not nearly as exciting as Students’ Library. The buzz created by the tottering towers of tomes there just could not be replicated in the sleeker Silk House, even though it had books that should have appealed to the English-medium-educated me.

“Though located in a small town, it was a place where several languages and literatures were to be found, with each one being treated with the utmost respect and love.”

The other exciting feature of Students’ Library was that it was always full of people. Yes, it did stock text books, but that was just a part of it. It was a place where several languages could be heard simultaneously. The latest Bangla novels by authors from both sides of the border filled shelves and tabletops. For Dhubri was as much a Bangla town as it was Assamese in those days, even though the local language was neither Assamese nor Bangla but the sweet Goalpariya idiom, which tripped off the tongue like a song.  My mother would invariably choose a few, both for herself and to gift to people who loved Bangla literature back in Shillong.

And of course, books by Assamese authors were always in stock. Poets like Naba Kanta Barua and Nirmal Prova Bordoloi, fiction writers such as Bhabendra Nath Saikia and Birendra Kumar Bhattacharjee, writers who went on to become, or already were legends in the literary field… the latest writings as well as classics in the language filled the shelves. My mother would often find books here that were not available in Shillong and buy them up greedily. In any case Assamese books did not cost much then. They still do not. There were always several fine books on Sikh History, for Dhubri had an important Gurdwara within its precincts, and quite a few Sikhs made the pilgrimage to the town for its sake.

Magazines and newspapers in several languages were always available there. I remember buying The Illustrated Weekly of India on several occasions, while my uncle always bought his copy of The Reader’s Digest from Students’ Library, which kept it aside for him and indeed, often sent it home through a messenger. All the books and magazines always had the oval blue ink stamp with its name and address in the lower left hand corner of the first page. Several books I own still have this stamp, defying the ravages of time.

It was a shop where we were always made much of. “Oh, how you have grown in this past year!” the owner of the shop and all the assistants would chorus, making us feel important. Tea and sandesh sweetened with local nolen gur would be pressed upon us, all brought in flowered china cups and saucers. My mother, busy with the books, and chatting with the other customers who were her friends, would not notice us sipping the milky sweet tea, even though back in Shillong we were not allowed to have it.

Among the purchases she always made were also English books. My father was an addict of detective fiction, especially Perry Mason mysteries. “Here is a new Earl Stanley Gardner, has jamaibabu read it yet?” the shop owner would ask. In that little town, my father was always referred to as the son-in-law. He would pull out a couple of brightly coloured paperbacks from a tower with a flick of his wrist, without disturbing the others in the least. My mother would protest that she hadn’t brought that much money with her to the shop, but all that would be brushed aside. “Take them, take them, I know you will make several more trips to my shop while you are here, you can pay me later. Who knows, somebody else might ask for them…”

As for my brother and me, we were in Heaven. The shop stocked books in English that we had never seen anywhere else. A large, illustrated book of Mythologies of Ancient Greece and Rome was acquired all those years ago from Students’ Library, and still sits on a shelf in my mother’s house. The picture of Perseus decapitating Medusa and holding her snaky tresses aloft, has left an indelible imprint on me. There was also Folk Tales of Bengal, with stories of poor but good and beautiful girls weeping beside ponds that magically turned to kheer so they could eat and remain well nourished.

Besides, there were the large Girls’ Annual and Boys’ Annual volumes, filled with stories of adventure and mystery and even first love. And the Classics! Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, Dickens, Mark Twain, Lamb’s Tales of Shakespeare…over the years, we acquired them all, along with Nehru’s Glimpses of World History and biographies of great men and women.  My mother also bought children’s books in Assamese for us, so that we would be lured into reading more in our mother tongue.

Not all the books we came home with were bought by our mother for us. Aunts, uncles, relatives, friends – everybody made it a point to take us to the shop during our winter visits, and gift us a book or two, so that on the journey back to Shillong, the Ambassador would be piled high with them.

No other bookshop I have ever been to since has the same atmosphere, the same excitement, the same linguistic variety, (the same dustiness!) as Students’ Library did. Though located in a small town, it was a place where several languages and literatures were to be found, with each one being treated with the utmost respect and love.

And today, when I hear about the arson and rioting and killing happening in that same town, I wonder – does that store, with its linguistic and religious variety of books, still remain? I speak to my relatives there often. But this question, about whether Students’ Library still exists, is one that I am afraid to ask.