A Library of Memories

Books once shaped Ms D. Bhattacharyya’s world, during her student days in Guwahati University. Though mobile reading now dominates her time, her most cherished memory remains a gift she once gave her father.

I used to be a voracious reader, but nowadays I barely read. My eyes aren’t what they used to be, but the main reason for my shift away from books is the mobile phone. Most of my reading now is on the phone—news articles, recipes, opinion pieces, critical commentaries, excerpts from books. My reading diet has become so restricted to the short form that books—novels and even short stories—feel slow. I feel a certain lethargy when I sit down to read them.
As a student at Guwahati University, from where I graduated with a BA degree, I was very different. There weren’t too many Bengali books available in the market in those days. Bengali speakers like us would have to ask relatives back in Bengal to post boxes of books to us. For me the college library was a wonderland filled with all my favourite authors.
I would devour books by the dozen. If a book caught my fancy, I would not take more than three days to finish it. Before exams, one of my professors would scold me and even ban me from borrowing books. Only after exams were over would my borrowing rights be restored.
I remember once, near the end of my schooling days, that a teacher urgently needed Tagore’s Sanchayita for an occasion. He asked if any of us had a copy at home. My father owned an old print of the collection, and I lent it to him. The teacher never returned it, claiming he had left it at someone else’s place.
I was heartbroken. I knew how precious the book was to my father and regretted lending it out. Later, when I started earning, I bought him another copy of Sanchayita. It was perhaps the first book I ever gifted him. Though I gave him several books over the years, that copy of Sanchayita remained his most treasured possession. It carried immense meaning for him—not only the words of Tagore, but also the proof of my love and respect for him.

(as narrated to Support Elders by our member)