How well do I know my own bookshelf? Well… it’s a million dollar question many booklovers never ask themselves. You go in a bookstore or visit a Sunday market of used books or you browse the website of an online bookseller and immediately you become a child in a candy store. So many wonderful books are there to allure you- latest fiction and non-fiction on the bestseller lists, a controversial biography which has excited a fierce debate, an invitation to pre-order a magnum opus of some ‘legendary writer of our time’ (at a heavily discounted rate) and then there are reissued editions of classics you always wanted to read and have on your shelf, invitations to join a book club and receive some books free, recommendations by friends and fellow academicians (if you belong to that tribe) and so on ….the list can be endless. So many temptations which are almost impossible to resist…each book seeming to be a ‘must have’. Your wishlist goes on swelling and so does your bookshelf. But have you ever had time to take a breath and think: ‘How many of these have I actually read?’ Then some day while searching for some required title or while moving your shelf to some other place or while cleaning the shelf, you suddenly discover that your own bookshelves have become unfamiliar to you and that many of the titles you enthusiastically and resolutely and (sometimes) greedily bought have been rusting. Many quite winter evenings or summer afternoons or rainy days which could have been spent romancing with those must reads have actually been spent (or often wasted) surfing the internet, following links after links and ending up at a place where you probably never intended to go or in silly parties, rubbish gossips, watching stupid daily soaps or (fake) reality shows and all.

All these thoughts came rushing to my mind and I am feeling sort of being woken up and reminded of the treasure I possess while I was looking for some distant El Dorado. Surprisingly, this has happened while surfing the internet where I happened to read by chance, an article about Susan Hill’s latest book: ‘Howards End is on the Landing: A Year of Reading from Home’. This book was released yesterday (15^th October 2009). It tells the story of one year that the author (Susan Hill) spent reading the books she already had and wanted to read but could not due to reasons like the ones listed above. She did a kind of penance deciding not to buy any new book for one year which she completely devoted to the books she already had. You can read Susan Hill’s introduction to her intensely personal and warm memoir where she takes us on a voyage around her own bookshelves at :

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/oct/16/howards-end-is-on-the-landing-susan-hill or you can click here to download it as a PDF file.

Also read Sarah Crown’s article on this book at :

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2009/oct/16/do-you-know-your-own-books 

Of course, this is a resolution we all can make and follow. I can’t say whether I’ll  follow Susan Hill; but if I do, I’ll surely break that year long self-imposed ban on buying new books just to buy this very book by Susan Hill.

 Professor Meenakshi Mukherjee

Hello and apologies for this long long and absolutely yaaaaaaawwwning gap of almost a  month. It has become increasingly difficult these days to take time off for a blog post though I wish to write more often and post more and more meaningful and helpful material than I presently do. But this time I had to take time off and write to share a bad bad news. The Indian academia, particularly, the world of English and Postcolonial Studies suffered a tremendous blow on its face in the passing away of one its most loved, treasured and esteemed scholar, Dr. Meenakshi Mukherjee on 16th  September 2009. Scholar, teacher, and critic par excellence, she was  warm, gentle and friendly as a human being in general and as a guide to the young aspirants in the field of English studies in particular. Meenakshi Mukherjee taught at Patna, Poona, Hyderabad, Delhi, Chicago, California and Texas. She was on her way to Delhi for the launch of her new book, a biography of the historian R.C. Dutt, published by Penguin when she suffered a silent heart attack at the Hyderabad airport. It is really amazing how cruel luck sometimes is and how mercilessly it shatters your plans. It was exactly on the last Friday  when I mentioned her name to my students of MA (English) II year while discussing the nature and scope of Indian Writing in English and told them that I hope to see her at the forthcoming Jaipur Literature Festival to be held during 21-25th  January 2010. But this can never happen now. No discussion of Indian Writing in English can be complete without a mention of Meenakshi di (as she was affectionately called) and her work on the subject. Particularly, her brilliant book The Perishable Empire: Essays on Indian Writing in English (Oxford), for which she won the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Award  (a rare  honour for a literary critic), is justly regarded as a pioneering text in the field of English and Postcolonial Studies in India. She is survived by a 93 year old mother and two daughters. My heart goes out to them. She has left behind herself a body of work, so dazzling, so original and so encouraging that it will always always keep attracting young talents to be her torchbearers.  

Read an obituary written by Professor Harish Trivedi of Delhi University.

RIP.

We’ll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes;
but the plural of ox became oxen not oxes.
One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,
yet the plural of moose should never be meese.

You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice;
yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.
If the plural of man is always called men,
why shouldn’t the plural of pan be called pen?

If I spoke of my foot and show you my feet,
and I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
why shouldn’t the plural of booth be called beeth?

Then one may be that, and three would be those,
yet hat in the plural would never be hose,
and the plural of cat is cats, not cose.

We speak of a brother and also of brethren,
but though we say mother we never say methren.

Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
but imagine the feminine, she, shis and shim.

Continue reading →

The Flow of Life

If the sky above seems cloudy,
And you are left out in the rain,
If you are searching for a rainbow,
But the colours bring you pain,

If your world is not revolving,
And there is no end in sight,
If you are looking for the sunshine,
But all you see is night,

If all around are smiling,
But all you can do is frown,
If you are tired of this living,
When life just brings you down,

Then look beyond your teardrops,
At the wonders of this land,
The beauty of a flower,
Like velvet in your hand,

Feel the air around you,
The smell of a new mown hay,
Laughing children in the park,
The innocence there at play,

Imagine floating with a butterfly,
As she flutters between the trees,
Or the whispers of the ocean,
On the warm hot summer’s breeze,

Think of the taste of candyfloss,
As it melts upon your tongue,
Or the melody of morning birds,
As they greet each day with song,

Remember words of beauty,
Told in your mother’s embrace,
Feel the gentleness of her touch,
As she softly kissed your face,

Seek the good within you,
Cast the clouds from your sky,
Don’t look towards the pavement,
But hold your head up high,

Think not what life owes you,
But of all you have to give,
Forget about tomorrow,
Then you can start to live,

So bless this age you are living in,
With the gifts you can bestow,
Don’t disregard the stream of life,
Go gently with the flow.