There is a certain bookstore in Lahore, close to 'Jalal Sons' and not too far off from 'Punjab Tikka House'. Not a very remarkable shop by any standards. But it does have the one remarkable feature: one will always find a book that one desires (I'm tempted to say that Providence plays its hand here and that it's actually 'needs', not desires).
Walking into that shabby little shop, which always changes its name...'old book world' to 'old book city' and now just 'old books', you imagine that you're a kind of Mr. Benn. Sadly, they've reduced the number of books they sell by about 75%, filling the shelves with cheap plastic Chinese toys, kid's magazines, piles of discarded Cosmopolitan, and other useless stuff. The shopkeeper looks up at me from his seat and asks me: "What are you looking for?" The tone of his voice makes you think there's something fateful in his question. "I don't know...nothing in particular."
Of course by now my heart has sunk just a little bit. One of the best and worst features of capitalism (or more generally, of the world) is that it keeps on relentlessly changing. Really is quite disorienting. Well, at least you have the books the Dougal has sent to fall back on...some DeLillo, A. Baier's Commons of the Mind, and New Finnish Grammar. As you move further down into the shop, the lighting becoming poorer as you do so, the books become progressively older and stranger. If there was any order in the stacking it has now gone. Genre, dates, themes, authors, all those categories that we are so dependent upon to make sense of our world are thrown out of the door. Paperback gives way to hardback. You're rocked back in time slightly. You hear a faint alarm going off in the distance; at least you think it's the distance. Twice you take out your phone from your pocket to check someone isn't calling.
By now it's becoming increasingly difficult to read some of the titles, the gold lettering having been worn down by time and dust. Some books just have plain white covers and could be just about anything. It might be Fanny Hill; it might be Aquinas. Mystery is there, you don't have to reach out for it. One part of your mind is aware that you have to leave soon, that your friends a street away are waiting for you. A few religious books now seem to be appearing. Red and gold. The technical stuff, the useful and worldly textbooks having long disappeared. We're now in different territory. Open country. Picture books and religion. Two minutes 'till class starts. So I'll end. I guess you can make out what I bought.
~~~
You think you'll open a book at a random page and find the line you're looking for. The first one that leaps out at you is:
"I realized that what I was doing was all unnecessary work."
---Morimoto Roshi.
Walking into that shabby little shop, which always changes its name...'old book world' to 'old book city' and now just 'old books', you imagine that you're a kind of Mr. Benn. Sadly, they've reduced the number of books they sell by about 75%, filling the shelves with cheap plastic Chinese toys, kid's magazines, piles of discarded Cosmopolitan, and other useless stuff. The shopkeeper looks up at me from his seat and asks me: "What are you looking for?" The tone of his voice makes you think there's something fateful in his question. "I don't know...nothing in particular."
Of course by now my heart has sunk just a little bit. One of the best and worst features of capitalism (or more generally, of the world) is that it keeps on relentlessly changing. Really is quite disorienting. Well, at least you have the books the Dougal has sent to fall back on...some DeLillo, A. Baier's Commons of the Mind, and New Finnish Grammar. As you move further down into the shop, the lighting becoming poorer as you do so, the books become progressively older and stranger. If there was any order in the stacking it has now gone. Genre, dates, themes, authors, all those categories that we are so dependent upon to make sense of our world are thrown out of the door. Paperback gives way to hardback. You're rocked back in time slightly. You hear a faint alarm going off in the distance; at least you think it's the distance. Twice you take out your phone from your pocket to check someone isn't calling.
By now it's becoming increasingly difficult to read some of the titles, the gold lettering having been worn down by time and dust. Some books just have plain white covers and could be just about anything. It might be Fanny Hill; it might be Aquinas. Mystery is there, you don't have to reach out for it. One part of your mind is aware that you have to leave soon, that your friends a street away are waiting for you. A few religious books now seem to be appearing. Red and gold. The technical stuff, the useful and worldly textbooks having long disappeared. We're now in different territory. Open country. Picture books and religion. Two minutes 'till class starts. So I'll end. I guess you can make out what I bought.
~~~
You think you'll open a book at a random page and find the line you're looking for. The first one that leaps out at you is:
"I realized that what I was doing was all unnecessary work."
---Morimoto Roshi.
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