The Generous Book-Stall Owners Down The Ages!
Amartya Sen (his name ‘Amartya’ was
given by the legendary Rabindra Nath Tagore), after finishing his school
education in Tagore’s Santiniketan the liberal atmosphere of which gave a
definite shape to his thinking (particularly his life-long resolve to work and
research for eradicating the stark inequalities and religious divisiveness of the
Indian society, influenced also by the great famine of Bengal of 1943 that
killed nearly 3 million people, and how to prevent reoccurrence of such famines
in future which he always held to be economically plausible, citing the World
War-2 erroneous policies of the British), joined the Presidency College in 1951
for his pre-university course (today’s 11-12 standard) in Calcutta that was
under the Calcutta University. His batchmate was Sukhamoy Chakraborty (1934-1990), one of
the greatest economists of all time and who along with PC Mahalanobis had been
a key architect in the formulation of India’s Five-Year Plans when he joined
the Planning Commission, after returning to India from his teaching at the MIT in
the US. Later, Sukhamoy Chakraborty was teaching at the Delhi School of
Economics as a professor of economics and during my post-graduate course
(1979-1981) I used to behold him in absolute admiration and awe, although he
did not take our classes as per my selected papers. Later, I was very sad to
know of his untimely demise in 1990. As avid students of economics the name of Amartya
Sen was very much known to us, and I think, but not sure, he visited the D
School some time during that period for a lecture. However, we must return to
our story, because once we start talking about those times it’d go on forever.
As was usual, Amartya and Sukhamoy did
not have enough money to buy every new book that arrived at the bookshelves of
the stalls. At times one of them would buy and lend it to the other or vice
versa. They also started visiting a particular book-stall where the owner did
not seem to mind them sitting there for hours reading their preferred books
without making any move to buy those. So, this went on, and at a crucial
juncture the book-stall owner made the kindest of gestures, impressed perhaps
by the knowledge-seeking intensity of the young boys. He offered to lend them
the precious books on a condition that the book would be lent only for a night
and it had to be returned the next day, in the original shape and quality. The generous
book-stall owner used to wrap up the book covers with newspapers for that very
objective. It was a godsend for the young scholars and they capitalized on this
as much they were capable of. Amartya Sen also recounts some other customer
asking the book-stall owner as to how he managed to do business in this way. The
owner was reported to reply that if he did not want to manage in that way he
would’ve gone for more profitable businesses like selling jewelries. This shows
how books and learning are admired and almost worshipped in West Bengal even now.
Cut now to my ‘coincidental’ part in the
story. During my pre-university days too in the seventies, to be exact during
1975-1977, in a small town called Mangaldoi (now in Darrang district of Assam) I
had been an avid student, helped very much by a ‘simple living high thinking’ inspired
and independent-spirited family environment. My civil-service-officer cum
writer-author-translator father was serving in that town for the second time,
and following him we four children, particularly my younger brother and I, were
literal book worms. We had an old bicycle that time and I daily used to go to the
Mangaldoi College that was more than two miles away from our rented house. We used
to get books from the district library, college library and other sources of
private lending. My father being an honest officer he had to run his family of
six with his limited monthly salary, and therefore, there was just not enough
money to go on buying new arrivals at the bookshelves; at times he bought and
at others we did saving out of our meager pocket money.
I used to frequent a book-stall
somewhere in my locality to regularly check the new books. I sensed that the
elderly book-stall owner had a very kind face and he always smiled at me
whenever I parked my bicycle and came to the counter. That perception about him
encouraged me to try reading the books at the stall itself: I’d normally ask
for the book I wanted, withdraw to the extreme corner of the counter-desk so
that other customers are not disadvantaged and kind of start devouring the
book; at most times I finish the book and return it with a cordial smile; when I
fail to finish the book, a voluminous one, in one ‘standing’ I come again the
next day and ask for the same book to which the generous book-stall owner never
reacts negatively or shows his displeasure. I really savored this godsend
opportunity to read and read new books without having to buy for months in my
leisure time, particularly in the forenoons of holidays. Of course, whenever I felt
a little guilty I used to somewhat recompense the book-stall owner by buying a
relatively cheaper book.
Such generous book-stall owners or
sellers or even shopkeepers exist even today, I’m sure. They are not cut-throat
sellers or competitors; they live their lives and do business with their
principles held high. In my Kolkata stay I found a shopkeeper who gave my
special items to me at a price less than the MRP. I was pleasantly surprised
and asked him how he could afford to do that while most others try to charge even
more than the MRP on some pretext or the other. He only smiles sweetly and says
that it is very much possible if you want to do that way. We also find quite a
few others in Mumbai and in Kolkata who give away their vegetables or fruits
without payment if we did not have the change in pocket then, saying with a
smile ‘take it Sir, where will you go!’ Great! I salute them all, like I’m sure;
the greats of Amartya Sen and Sukhamoy Chakraborty obviously did and do.
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