The year was 1960. My parents had just married. It was not a normal marriage. Much against her father's wish, my mother had eloped with my father. They had stable jobs but the income wasn't anything great. They lived in a big joint family with various uncles and cousins of mine. They had just one room in a big but rented house in Kalighat with virtually no furniture of their own save for a chowki and a table. Perhaps a chair too.
Around this time the government of West Bengal announced a grand plan to celebrate the birth centenary of Rabindra Nath Tagore (1961) in style. They decided to publish the complete works of the poet for a princely sum of Rs 100. My parents never told me in as many words, but I can understand that it must have been a lot of money for them in those days. And not just money - the series was published in instalments. Every time a new volume came out (15 of them in all) my father would go and collect it personally. I am sure he had to endure long waits in queues.
My parents were nothing special. It was a 15 volume set that most culturally conscious Bengalis had (and most still have) in their possession - regardless of their financial background.
When I was very young, we still lived in that ground floor single room in Kalighat. We had a table, a proper bed for the four of us, a covered cupboard made of masonite board (presumably for clothes) and a folding wooden chair. I remember the Tagore works (more famously known as Rabindra Rachanabali among Bengalis) would be generally kept on the table. By this time we had of course the complete works of Swami Vivekananda too. Subsequently Sarat Chandra and Bibhuti Bhusan too joined the family collection.
The Tagore collection always felt like something special. The binding was of high quality. The jacket had a unique colour combination. The paper was fine and had a very special feel to it. I loved flipping through the pages. We used the collection fairly extensively - for poetry, songs, stories. I could never bring myself to read the novels or the dance dramas. But the collection was an integral part of our growing up, as were various other books.
Some time in the late 80s - by this time our available space in the house in Kalighat had grown - a big white ant (ui poka) attack happened in our house. We were just not prepared for such a shock and didn't even know how fast it spreads or how to deal with it. Most of our books were destroyed almost overnight. Needless to say, the Tagore collection became useless in a matter of days and had to be thrown away one by one.
We had to digest this shock almost silently. "Pest control" was still not so easily available in Calcutta. I was mentally devastated, particularly so at the loss of the Tagore collection. That centenary edition was never published in that original version or with that kind of paper ever again.
However, I grew up learning that that which cannot be cured must be endured. It soon sank somewhere into the subconsious only to resurface again just the other day.
The new book shelf in my new flat brought that pain of losing those old books back to the fore once again. Mentally I started preparing myself for buying a Tagore collection. Just before moving in I started looking around for the latest edition. Viswa Bharati has a collection. But I have never somehow liked its thick pages and its obvious new look. But I knew I would have to settle for it.
On an idle day at work I was surfing the internet to check its price when I suddenly realised there were several of that original cenetenary edition up for sale on OLX or Quikr etc. The most authentic ad turned out to be by an old lady somewhere in Dwarka, Delhi, who I spoke to over phone. I needed a confirmation from someone that it is indeed the original edition and in decent condition. The owner herself said she had no clue about that. I contacted Dadu (Abhijit Majumdar) who lives in Noida. He said Dwarka was some two hours or so from his house. However, he would request a colleague of his to go and take a look but that colleague was not Bengali !!!
In my desperation I told him yes even if a non-Bengali can go and take a photograph of the book and send it to me I can check. As I was discussing this with Surajit from our office he said our man in Delhi - Siddhartha Shankar Ray - lived in Dwarka itself and he would probably love to do such a verification and help as much as possible as he is a very culturally rooted Bengali.
To cut a long story short - Siddhartha turned out to be a God send for me (with Surajit being the god). He personally went to the old lady on a weekend, verified the authenticity of the edition and informed me about his findings. He wasn't too happy with the condition but you don't really expect books older than 50 years to be in mint condition. He purchased the books and couriered it to me in excellent packaging.
I got them today and unpacked the carton at home immediately upon return from work. They now find a place of pride on my new shelf. The original edition cost Rs 100. The new old books cost me Rs 200 each. The new ones incidentally cost around the same I think. But who cares?
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