No significant update. Just removing dead links.
-Aside-
Ages ago, the Intellectual Whores website (now a 404) had given me some solace; but not much hope though. The masterfully written Ladder Theory explains why things are so screwed up; but, yeah, but, so we (whores?) don't lose hope, there are the ever so entertaining whore avoidance tips. Now, after all these years, I finally manage to read Woody Allen's short story,
The Whore of Mensa.
-End of Aside-
It made me reminisce my own guilty trips to establishments of
that sort. I remember how the Penguin Classics shelves at New India Book Depot in Connaught Place had seduced me. I had no hope. But that was just once though. Not the case with Fact and Fiction Booksellers in PVR Priya though. I got lured there many times; oh so many times. I went there for the smell. But no, it's not easy; I absolutely cannot stand dust. But these people have somehow managed to make the smell pleasurable - the right mix of old dust, new page texture, looming shelves, cozy corners of wood, and maybe they subtly spray bibiliodisiac all over the place. I wonder what will be my stopword this time? How about 'stop'? But before all that, I helplessly writhe and reach out for Simone. I know I have not been able to do her the last time, but hopefully this time...hopefully.
Then, there are the concubines at home. I have left them spread haphazardly on my bed, under it, on the cold steel shelf, on the hard floor, everywhere. And all these are the more prized ones: I could call each one my own Khartoum. I go back to them everyday, I caress their initial pages now and then, but only a few I have managed to take in fully. Well, some day - some day, there will be that grand marathon session. Or some day - some day, there will be that long session where I will reaffirm my intellectual youth by using them with all the rigour that they deserve. Or some day - some day, I will just take them all one by one, till I collapse.
I love them though.
Labels: books