Subir Roy: The other side of Brigade Road

OFF BEAT

Children will be over ambitious and our son was no exception. For his second semester microeconomics assignment, he was not satisfied with doing some local data collection and putting together a plausible validation of a small part of the theory of the firm.

He had rather taken to the story of what British rule had done to Indian economic enterprise, courtesy his economic history teacher, and wanted to make his point by looking at the plight of Indian businesses as they struggled to compete under the unequal terms of trade laid down by our British rulers.

That began a search for R C Dutt's book that had played a role in strengthening the resolve to shake off the colonial yoke in view of the depredations the Indian economy had suffered under it. A cursory look around in Bangalore and I hit upon the strategy that I knew would work.

I called Amit in Kolkata, my friend from college days, and sought his help. The book eventually came, suitably aged but in good condition, picked up no doubt from some musty old corner of College Street. But one look at the inscription, and I knew that Amit had parted with what must have been his second copy.

There, I thought, the matter rested. But soon our son was back with his second request: You have passed on to me your copy of the first volume of the Cambridge Economic History of India; now please get me the second.

So there I was on the same goose chase and eventually talking to Amit on his cell phone. His own considerable collection guaranteed that even if he did not have a copy, he would know where one could be procured.

While Amit set his procurement machinery in motion, I got on to my son and suggested: You are right there in Chennai, where a lot of book lovers live; ask your teacher where you could locate a copy.

The economic history teacher was most eloquent about this great collection of second hand book shops in Moore Market, right next to the Madras Central Station, which was a happy hunting ground for book collectors.

Then, after holding forth on the many virtues of Moore Market, the teacher concluded: but, of course, you cannot find the book there; the market is gone now. It had, in fact, been destroyed in a fire well over a decade ago.

So there I was, back on the cell phone, asking Amit if his tribe of volunteers who specialised in locating difficult-to-find books had made any headway.

It is then that he delivered a good punch, using words we loved during our pseudo-intellectual college days: You are such a philistine; you are in Bangalore and you have not become a regular at Select; do try them, I order books from them sitting here.

I was both chastened and energised. Of course, I had heard about Select. Who in Bangalore had not. But in three years I had not set foot in it for complex reasons. One is when you know that a place of pilgrimage exists, you sometimes postpone the day when you will pay your first visit.

It has to be an appropriate occasion. Another is that, to do justice to a place like Select, you need loads of time. I found it so much more convenient to quickly walk across to Premier, an equally famous bookshop run by an equally distinctive old gentleman, the books piled high in equal disregard of modern or even sensible stocking methods, equally frequented by book lovers, the only difference being that Premier was to new books what Select was to old.

So there I was, having stolen a bit of time in between the early hours when the morning's chores are done and the rush that begins in a newspaper office from late afternoon, looking for Select in the vicinity of Brigade Road, dodging between shoppers and young people who let their jeans sweep the street and leave the midriff bare.

But where on earth was Select? I knew it would not have a neon sign outside but none of the side streets yielded the hidden treasure. Finally, I found it, realising I had been looking into the alleys on the wrong side of the road and feeling outright silly.

Select was quite like what I had thought it would be, only the books more neatly organised. I was soon on the first floor, browsing through trivia and treasure, ensconced in a world from which everyone other than books and their patrons had been excluded, temporarily relieved of every serious concern other than to loaf around those mostly obscure titles.

Books and authors who were talked about decades ago still found a place on the shelves. There was A Thousand Days by Arthur Schlesinger Jr, a prime member of anybody's Kennedyana and of far earlier vintage Ten Days that Shook the World, by John Reed.

It was great but the Cambridge Economic History of India was not there. A bit regretfully I got ready to go back when I found a book that I had been looking for ever since my children began to grow up.

I wanted them to share the joy that I had felt when I had gone through it in my high school days. I had made them suitable fans of Alistair MacLean and I had even found them reprints of that gentle novelist Nevil Shute, but try as I might I could not find the unforgettable tale of a doctor who had built a villa in Capri and lived through a fashionable continental practice without being able to sleep, such was his insomnia. There in nondescript off-white stood The Story of San Michele by Axel Munthe.

My day was made. Select had more than lived up to its name. I also added a Pelican Edition of E J Hobsbawm's Industry and Empire, the story of Britain and the Industrial Revolution and walked out. I felt both elated and ashamed that the two books made me poorer by just Rs 150 and incalculably richer in other ways.