Katha-O-Kahini and Me

Our bookstore was called “Katha-O-Kahini” after one of Tagore’s poems. My father, an ardent Tagore believer, had named the store. I can’t give a first hand account of how it started—I was not born then, you see. I will restrict myself to writing about us, i.e., Katha-O-Kahini and me. I will keep the beginning of the store for another post which will be my father’s reminiscences.

My fist memory of the store was when I was seven. It was on the ground floor of our home—one of the oldest book stores in College Street. Large and sprawling, it offered me endless space and sudden nooks behind shelves that I could retire to unobserved and undisturbed with an Amar Chitra Katha. The book store was my space—where I could daydream, read, and pretend to customers that I was in charge when my father went upstairs to have tea. My constant companion was my cat called Cat. She was as much a part of me as the store. She sat curled on my lap as I read. When I would jump up thoughtlessly because a prospective customer had come spilling her on to the floor, she would just miaow a gentle protest and walk away to curl up under one of the shelves.

Katha-O-Kahini and I have had a long and fulfilling love affair that began when I was just seven, and still continues although one of the two no longer exists. It has been 30 years and the passion has not diminished. This is my tribute to the store, to the wonderful childhood it gave me, to the endless pleasures of reading that it introduced me to, for being with me when I sorely needed company, for always being there when I needed a shoulder to cry on offering me comfort by its very presence and familiarity.

I was a solitary child but never a lonely one. Maa fell grievously ill when I was very young and Baba was always worried about her. But he ensured that this did not affect my spirit. We shared a wonderful relationship and our passion for the store. We went on book-buying sprees together to fill the shelves in the store. Baba always sought my advice when it came to selecting the English books. Today, I marvel at his trust. When the publishers like Rupa & Co. and others we were buying from asked him if they should pack all the books I had selected, he just turned and said, “Yes, isn’t that why I have asked her to choose.” I was 10 at this time.

As I grew older, my choice of books changed. I began adding Gerald Durrell, Thomas Hardy, James Herriot, Margaret Mitchell, Alistair MacLean, Chekov, Sholokov, and so on and on to the piles we would bring back to the store.

Today, I can see what was happening. The English section of Katha-O-Kahini was growing up with me. Its character changed and blossomed with the passing of years. When I was 16, this section had all the classics like Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Little Women, Jude the Obscure, Thorn Birds. The English Corner, as I used to call it, had the nature of an introspective, quiet, thoughtful teenager on the verge of becoming a woman. Amar Chitra Kathas, Jataka Tales, Enid Blytons no longer occupied the centre shelves. They were relegated to the bottom ones—not that this mattered. Children loved to squat down on the floor and leaf through the books.

In an era long before the advent of the likes of Crosswords, Landmarks and Starmarks, Katha-O-Kahini had introduced the concept of reading corners. It was a store built over more than 3,000 square feet of space and was divided into two rooms. Customers could walk into the store and browse through the shelves. Ladders were kept at strategic points for the adventurous customers who wanted to climb up and look for books themselves. Most usually preferred to ask. I loved to show off my agility by climbing up to the topmost rung of the ladder and asking them the titles they wanted me to get. I was nothing if not a little vain.

The inside room had small stools and two comfortable, slightly sagging sofas where you could curl up with a book and remain till it was time for the shop to close. One of the sofas was usually occupied by Cat (if I was in the store) who would gracefully get up if anyone wanted to sit, playing the perfect hostess. This inside room was devoted to English books and was under my control and supervision. Once back from school, I just spent enough time upstairs to shower, change, and have lunch.

Baba let me keep the books the way I wanted. He would observe me to see whether I was rotating the books on the shelves and keeping them clean. Only once did he have to remind me that books needed to be cleaned and well-arranged for customers to be attracted. That was the first and the last time.

I was avidly interested in the sales from this section. I began to select books after carefully making a note of the kind of books customers asked for. By then, all the regulars knew that if they wanted any English books they had to ask me. During my exams when Ma would force me to sit in the evenings and study, Baba would have a tough time. Customers accustomed to me would come and ask, “Ki Kalyan babu, apnar meye kothay? O thakley ekhuni boita baar korey dito.” Baba would get slightly flustered and ask Ma, “Or ki ekhono pora hoyeni?” There was no pressure on me to perform in the exams and yet I did quite well. I would wait to hear Baba tell Ma, “Dekhecho, puro dokan samleyo koto bhalo result korechey. Ami to tomay bolechilam, chinta korona. O thik bhalo result korbey.” My self esteem and confidence knew no bounds.

This is a tribute to Baba and to Katha-O-Kahini. English readers of the blog will miss some of the Bengali sentences. I will translate those the next time I want to write. For the time being, I will leave them as Baba used to say them.