All good things gone: Books, values, selflessness

From time to time, my husband and I harvest our books so that we pass on the ones we have finished with to make place for some we wish to buy. The work can be done in one morning but ever so often we get distracted by the memories carried by many of them. During a recent ‘harvest’, we wondered what to do with all our social science and literary criticism books and, after a long debate, decided that we could not let them go. Not yet, at any rate. One day, we intend to give them away to a university library (yet to resolve whose university: his or mine?), but we still want to hang on to them for they made us what we are. Even so, almost 200 books were put away in cartons to be distributed among friends (mostly detective fiction and thrillers picked up at airport and railway station bookstalls) and other, more serious ones, to be donated to a very worthy public library my brother-in-law has built up in Dehradun. Among the books I now like to buy are Hindi fiction and translations from other regional languages so that I can acquaint myself with what is being written and the thought across the country outside the kit-pit English booklists. I recommend that some of my readers try this to expand their minds.

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It is worth exploring why a huge surge in literacy rates in our country has not translated into increased sales of books. Each time I meet someone from the publishing world, I am told of the grim time being faced by many of them and how they have to cut back staff and budgets. I am aware that retail book sales have been badly hit by e-sales offered by Amazon, Flipkart and Kindle, but are people (especially the young) reading books in numbers that makes publishing a worthwhile industry? If I take into account the attendance at lit fests (93 in this country alone on last count!) and base my assessment of book sales on those numbers, this decline makes no sense. And yet, all of Delhi’s iconic bookstores are shutting down to be replaced by clothes, shoes and jewellery shops. The same phenomenon stares one in the face abroad (where even newspapers are read online) but some enterprising book lovers have devised ways to deal with this downturn. Second-hand bookstores, pavement markets on weekends — still attract buyers. 

The truth is that we are entering a galaxy that has different stars. Cinema, sports and music are the new crowd pullers and after they have liberated themselves from the tyranny of enforced reading in schools, the young want to be free of them. The television and its infinitely more entertaining serials and reality shows have taken over from books and authors. As long as you know the title of the latest bestseller and can Google it before an interview, why bother with reading it cover to cover? Where we discussed books we were reading and passed them on, the young collegians now discuss fashion trends and swap clothes and accessories. And why not: if for days and weeks, we can discuss the Sheena Bora case or Salman Khan’s shenanigans, we dumb down our viewers’ responses. In the absence of role models and ideological commitments (how I bemoan the decline of the Left and spiritual leaders), they have nothing to hold their wandering interests and energy together. We were the gods that failed them and we must pay the price for that. 

When I think deeply about this, I have some more insights to offer. Those of us who grew up in the last century in middle-class homes and with parents who practised and preached austerity, made the mistake of equating success and financial security when we became parents. I know many parents who are disturbed by the profligate lifestyles of their children and grandchildren but who never blame themselves for not instilling respect for a higher goal than a fat bank balance. No teacher ever wants his children to follow in his footsteps because a teacher never earned enough to live a life of comfort. For the same reason, honest officers discourage their children from joining the civil services because neither honesty nor merit is ever rewarded. Investment bankers, financial services, management jobs have replaced the IAS-engineer-doctor trimurti of our times. Children were also taught to forget everything else and do well in exams. Looking after the older people, taking care of less fortunate relatives, giving their time to those who needed help — lessons that were ingrained in an earlier generation — were never considered as important as success in their careers. Those who could, left large properties and fat bank balances for their children. The result is that while there is one lot who is obsessed with money and its bounty, the others feel no need to work because inheritance and secure bank balances take care of them, so why bother?

If there is any hope, it lies with the children of those who have faced hard times and grown up in denial of comfort. The hunger in their bellies will bring us our new leaders of industry and give a new direction to our political life. The days of entitlement and dynasty are over; the sooner we accept this, the better for all of us.