I remember my mother confiscating my copy of Every Night, Josephine! when I was a teenager because she thought its salacious title didn't imply juvenile reading. Now, it seems the wheel has come around as I screen what my parents are deemed fit to read. As their default library in-charge, it has fallen upon me to carry their supply of reading to Bikaner on every visit home. This would not have mattered earlier, but with every passing year I find myself priggishly screening content for sex and violence not befitting parental reading.
My father is a voracious reader of war and Partition tomes but I suspect he's past the age when photographs of bombed-out habitations and makeshift piles of skulls need to accompany the descriptions of horror. This makes for some devious sleight of hand. But how does one remove pages of illustrations from otherwise serious books without appearing like a cranky old aunty? Should one's mother, recently turned 80 and a punter of the risque Angelique series in her youth, be permitted the exposure to the misogyny that infects so much fiction these days? Cinema has its 'parental guidance' for children, but what happens when it's time one's parents need guiding?
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The bookshop where I go searching for anodyne titles is probably aware of the perils of senior reading and tries to recommend books that are as safe as adult diapers. "That one's no good," the genial proprietor will say, "It's got too many digital references for that generation to enjoy." I automatically eliminate the Swedish authors he places my way - the tongue-twisting names of the characters are more trouble than the read is worth. As for sex, it all boils down to how much they can take in their stride. "It's better to filter it for them," I try to justify to my siblings, even though I know it amounts to censorship.
My parents send me lists of books they've read reviews of and I lie that they're not available in the stores yet. My mother wonders why I can't order them "on that online thing", so I say my credit card doesn't have balance, leading to exasperated sighs at the purged reading they're forced to endure. Occasionally, a 'friend' will slip them something entirely unsuitable for their age, which I'll know because they've wrapped the book jacket clumsily in newspaper, but it's an occasional fling I try not to make much of. After all, how many historical romances can you read without wanting to throw up?
But I was at the receiving end of similar expurgation myself when I learned from our vendor that my son had cancelled my subscription to a couple of international journals that I like. When I protested to my son, he informed me they contained inflammatory material about religion, war and sex, which made them "unsuitable reading" for someone of my age.