Book that Gives Peace of Mind & Comfort to the Soul

The book in which I find peace of mind and ease of spirit—
yes, that book makes me a worm! A bookworm—that is what I call myself. Man may stand a little higher than worm, yet I feel no shame in accepting this epithet. Listen further: I wish to remain a bookworm all my life. In the weariness of civic society, in a life stripped of variety, in the dull monotony of days, in the arrogance of neighbours, in the indifference of nature—who else can bestow meaning upon life, if not books? In the modern world, true friendship is a rare luxury. In the old days, a lonely man sighed, “God is my only friend.” I have changed that saying. For me, book is my only friend. The throne once occupied by God, I have offered to the book. If in some prison, surrounded by walls, a despot were to condemn me to life-long exile, I would not mind—so long as that prison were a vast library.
 
Yet, in the present context of the world, the place of the book in human life is strangely complicated. On one side is the tyranny of mass media, on the other, the endless race of working life. Where is the time, where is the solitude necessary for reading? A book is something to be read in silence, in absorption; instead, we have dragged it into the market’s clamour. Poetry, story, essay—these are now made “popular” by turning prose and verse into something frivolous and simplistic. And there lies the danger. The tale already digested in a television serial—who will wish to read that same simple tale in print? Thus poetry drifts toward ruin, and the act of poetry-reading is itself turned into spectacle. Stories are transformed into cinema, where viewing matters more than reading. Soon essays too will be staged as performance. All this pulls man farther away from the book.
A question is often asked: In the age of television serials, how aware are people of the value of a book? I think the economy of the market has gradually made people turn their backs on books. Do not mistake me: I am not against the market itself, but against unfair competition. This twenty-first century, computer-driven, is called the “Information Age.” At the close of postmodernism, this Age of Information has arrived, where information is the mantra. The air around us—newspapers, television channels, satellite networks—all pour upon us an endless flood of information: pure or adulterated, millions upon millions of fragments. In a land of free competition, the man who holds more information is deemed more valuable.
 
Look at College Street, the famous book district. Novels, stories, poems sell—but five times more are sold of guides, notes, arithmetic and science texts, books of business accounts, computers, general knowledge, current affairs, joke compilations, Student’s Friends. To a true lover of books, this is a crowded hell. This shift in the very character of books is summoning their downfall. For when the press depends only on textbook business, and when, with the advance of technology, textbooks shift entirely to digital media, printing presses themselves will become redundant. Already I see, with the eye of imagination, that day: when textbooks will no longer be printed, when even the Oxford Dictionary will not be printed—for at the touch of a computer key, in an instant, all words, all books shall appear. What then? Will authors survive, or only bloggers? A grave danger hangs over the printing press.
 
Today, in College Street, no bookshop survives that sells only literature. All year, what sustains them is textbook trade. Poetry volumes are vanishing. Even the greatest poet of this age dares not print more than eleven hundred copies. Storytellers or novelists, unless backed by powerful newspapers, at most venture two thousand copies—and even then, most must be sold wholesale at half price after two years. These novels too are often wrapped in cheap allure: gossip, sex, shallow sensationalism. As for literature proper, most of it is the classics—Rabindranath, Sarat, Bibhutibhushan. Young poets and novelists seldom find publishers. Without the crutch of a commercial house, there is no way to become an author now.
 
And what of the writing itself? Even before publication, a writer is given strict warnings by publishers: “Write plainly. Write on these subjects. In verse, keep clear rhythm.” Publishers are now prescribing both content and style. Once, in Bengal, this power lay only with magazine editors. People say, not a line is published in a big literary magazine unless some hidden exchange has been made. Through such barter, men from every sphere—bureaucrats, doctors, liquor merchants—become “writers.” While the true devotee of poetry languishes.
 
I recall a story. A young poet, often submitting to a famous weekly, found his works consistently rejected. He thought, perhaps his poems were unworthy. Visiting the editor, he would receive elaborate explanations of their faults. An elder poet advised him: copy a Tagore poem, word for word, and send it in. He did so. Two months later he asked about it. The editor replied: “I read your poem. It doesn’t quite work. Write with more effort next time.” The young poet burst out: “You are a great man indeed! The poem I sent was not mine, it was Rabindranath’s.” Such is the state of Bengali letters. Today, manuscripts are accepted not by merit, but by the name of the author.
 
In such a climate, the young writer has no options: either print at his own expense, or submit entirely to the publisher’s demands, or bribe him with favours. At least treat him to drinks at Peter Cat. Even then, who will read the book once printed? Does a true readership even exist anymore? The discerning reader is almost extinct. Everywhere I see only self-proclaimed cinema connoisseurs. Thus the writer’s only path of survival is market literature—travel books, cookbooks, sports books, sex manuals. Books of information sell sky-high. From every book, readers demand only information or thrill. No one seeks knowledge.
 
Yet knowledge was the very purpose for which books were first created—to awaken the human mind. The conflict between knowledge and information is as old as time. Traders of information have always been many, seekers of knowledge few. Most modern men mistake information for knowledge. They think possession of facts sets them apart. And yet, information spreads so widely that we cannot blame only the seekers. Society itself is at fault. States, whether communist or democratic, strive to make men into machines. The faster a man becomes machine, the smoother his survival. Discipline is installed. In that discipline, knowledge finds no role. Thus the demand for information grows, and the need for knowledge declines.
 
A man who has all his life heard only statistics from the media—numbers of deaths, deficits of money—how shall he, at the end, pursue life and abundance with knowledge? Schooled always in numbers, he is easily regimented. His brain becomes addicted to information, trusts nothing without it. The quiet joy of reading a poem in solitude, or losing oneself in a great novel—this is beyond him now. Thus the kind of book I call true—the book that fosters the flowering of human excellence—is vanishing.
 
The Book Fair—thousands upon thousands of books gathered in one place. To walk through them is delight itself. Yet the aggressive force of the Information Age has consumed even that. The Fair is judged in crores of rupees of sales, proof of book-lovers! But let us measure instead the kinds of books sold. We would then see: the Fair has become a market of information.
 
Not only the Fair. Take libraries—National Library, for instance, where once countless scholars studied. Today, ninety percent of readers come only for information. I myself have borrowed many great books of the twentieth century, only to find I was the first to issue them, thirty years after they had arrived. They lay entombed in dust for decades. Often I returned after five years, and again, I was the very next borrower. In contrast, textbooks, criticism notes, computer manuals—these are besieged. One borrower, ten others in line. Publishers pressed for multiple copies. And so, the day of books as vessels of knowledge seems over.
Nor should one be fooled by seeing bookshelves in a house. Many books does not mean a lover of books. One must ask: what does he read? Knowledge or mere information? Those who read for information may still be weighed. But those who never read, who spend eight hours daily on television serials—into what class do we place them? In our childhood, every household had book-lined shelves. Today we see only showpieces, trinkets of travel. Even my friends come to my house and ask in amazement: “No children here, no students—then who reads all these books?” If I reply, “I do,” they ask again: “But where do you find the time?” Ah, what an age we live in!
 
At the beginning, I admitted myself a bookworm. But readers must now see, how crudely that word is used today. “Bookworm” now means one who reads only for exams, for jobs. In truth, the worm is a worm of information! Since books cannot easily escape the grip of information, I must declare myself otherwise: not a worm, but a lover of books. I read not only when necessary, but when unnecessary too. For leisure, for knowledge, for sadness.
 
In Book Fair, in College Street, in library—I must be vigilant, lest the disease of the worm infect me. A true book must be sought carefully, chosen with thought: what to read, why to read. Many search only for storehouses of fact, and that is natural—books serve worldly needs. But a book is not mere food for the body, it is nourishment for the mind.
 
That madman I seek, I find him sometimes. This year at the Fair, I met him. A stubbled face, sweating faintly in the winter dusk, his fingers blackened with dust of books. At the stalls of little magazines, he hunted for the novel of some obscure Latin American writer. His body was restless, but his mind more so. Books do not fill his belly; he is consumed by his third hunger—the hunger of knowledge. Knowledge of man and nature. Above all, the search for the meaning of life within books—this is his salvation. For him, book is peace of mind, and ease of soul.