Printer & the Devil

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When the idea of the 'booklet of bosh' (aping Edward Lear's 'Book of Bosh') took me over, I went to the neighborhood cyber-cafe chap and asked him to refer me to a printer in the Khairatabad locality (I didn't want to go to distant places, since I knew I would have to make several trips). He told me to go to Varun Printers in the gulley beside the Municipal Office.

So, I walked down to the place the same evening to find it a dingy cubby-hole manned by a sweating middle-aged chap working with a client seriously. There was no standing room. Apparently, he isn't into book-publishing….only election posters, office stationery etc. But he was working on a sleek system and the off-set printing machine looked well-oiled.

I learned early in my life not to go by mere looks...

After a few minutes' waiting, I got bold and asked him if I could get a booklet of around 50 pages got up there. He didn't look up, but asked if I have the 'stick' (the latest memory device) with me. I said no. He told me to bring it, still without looking up. I asked him if I could just have a rough estimate of the cost per copy. He looked up and sneered at me (I am not good-looking, unlike my son), and gruffly announced loudly that he is not in the habit of making 'guesses'. I replied that I would bring the damn stick in half an hour. He said he was busy and asked me to come the next morning with it.

I have a sneaking admiration for businessmen (not public servants) who are abrupt in their manner in the fiercely competitive world of Hyderabad. Means they can afford to be that!

Next morning I visited him with the stick in my pocket. He asked me when I wanted the thing to be delivered. I said within a week (the file was growing like sin and I wanted the thing to be wound up before it became a Mahabharat). He said sorry, he was busy till 10th with Election Work. I asked him to refer me to a couple of places. He did so.

One of these places turned out to be a centrally air-conditioned huge work-place oozing pretty girls with mod accents and gleaming machinery. I gave my stick to one of those 'mams' I was referred to. She was sweet as a cooing dove and gave me the sample output of my 50 pages in a few minutes. The thing looked hideous; pagination was garbled, sizing was wrong, and the thing was repulsive. I told her that I can sit down with her and get the thing edited to my satisfaction….but she cooed that that was all she can deliver…they don't do such stuff as I required.

I left the place with the stick back in my pocket and tried a couple of more places; and almost gave up. Then, the 10th of April was gone by and one evening I revisited the Varun Printers. He gave me a knowing smile and bade me sit down beside him and copied the material on his system and asked me to meet him the next day.

The next day he was not as gruff as he earlier was; apparently he went through the damn thing here and there ('sampled the limericist'!) and was intrigued. After a couple of more sittings, he was warming up to me by degrees till yesterday when he was positively 'reverential'. When the cover page was got ready, I was quite happy and so were Sonoo and Sailaja. He made it very sober and dignified (unlike the contents!).

This morning, after he met all my finicky requirements with pleasure, I asked him to put his byline on the back cover...'Printed at Varun Printers' etc as is the custom.

He was a little uneasy, but started typing. Half way through, he demurred and asked me if it was really necessary. I asked him why not. He bent his head down and murmured that the contents looked too 'political' for his good.

The chap had been going through page by page on the sly in his leisure hours!

I smirked and showed him the Foreword by an IAS. He said that he saw it...but still... I told him ok….leave it. He erased it and heaved a huge sigh of relief, and almost touched my feet for letting him off!...

That was when I went to the neighborhood stamp-maker and ordered a rubber stamp: 'for private circulation'...
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P.S. Life is still full of surprises (at age 65+)!

Next day when I went to collect the copies, the owner was absconding, but I found the legend: 'Printed at Varun Printers' etc at the bottom of the back cover of each booklet in the smallest legible font.

I felt that what I wrote was not exactly 'pornography'!

Moreover, instructions were left by the printer to take permission from me to allow an extra copy to be retained by him as "SAMPLE".

The Devil won; as usual!