Bibliophobes

===========================================================

For a moment I thought I was inventing a new word: 'Bibliophobe'.

But Shakespeare said it long while ago:

******************************************************************************
SONNET 59

If there be nothing new, but that which is
Hath been before, how are our brains beguiled,
Which, labouring for invention, bear amiss
The second burden of a former child.

*****************************************************************************

It isn't there in my fat 2-volume Webster, but I found it in an Online Dictionary:

******************************************************************************

Bibliophobe

n

"a person who hates, fears or distrusts books"

**********************************************************************

I guess it refers to Dictators who proscribe, ban or burn books, because they are scared that they would undermine their vice-like grip on their subjects.

Censoring, banning and proscribing books is as old as Cicero.

At our AU, we had to read a prescribed slim Prose book by Milton titled: Aeropagetica. It was an impassioned plea against proscriprtion (censoring) of books by his regime. It was unreadable at first, but I got it 'by heart" by and by. (Telugus say: "kanthasth"; by vocal chords; while Bengalis say "mukhostho", by tongue; we Indians don't take books 'by heart' to our heart, looks like).

Galileo had to smuggle his monumental books out of Italy from his house-imprisonment.

Church and the State!!!

I watched a movie: 'Fahrenheit 444' many decades ago. That is the ignition temperature of paper. The Regime ordered all books in all its libraries burnt. The last scene is pathetic: a swarm of ill-clad 'memory-geeks' walking about listlessly in their open-air jail, mumbling, memorizing, repeating and getting the contents of EVERY book they smuggled in 'by heart'.

It is now not that easy, although the GoI brought Blackberry to its knees, like her Northern Neighbor did to Google.

My son says he had to 'Delete' some of his stuff 'by order' from his mail-box; and then 'Empty Trash' too. He did it, but later quietly went to the Microsoft 'Help' and found the trick by which he can 'Recover the Emptied Trash'.

That feat of 'memory-geeks' reminds me of a Chandamama story I read when I was a kid:

In one of their periodic tiffs, Kalidas goes into hiding, not appearing in Bhojraj's Court. After a week of separation, Bhojraj is forlorn and orders everyone under his command to ferret out Kalidas from wherever he is hiding with bountiful cash prizes on him.."alive and kicking" (unlike our former President of the US's order: "alive or dead"; ...till now neither...Dollars go only that far!).

It doesn't work. Fine-Tooth and comb.

His CM draws up a clever plan:

He invites anyone who can produce an original and NEW shlok to appear in the Court and recite it. If it is proved that the shlok is indeed original and new, the poet would walk away with 'Akshar-Lakha' (gold sovereigns in lakhs totaling the number of letters in his shlok...stretch them like my blogs {;-}).

Many needy and greedy poets and versifiers make a beeline to the Court with their original compositions and start reciting them. It turns out that Bhojaraj's Court has: an Eksandhagrahi, a Dwisandhagrahi, a Trisandhagrahi et al (the first capable of repeating anything he hears just once, the second twice etc).

As soon as the claimant recites his shlok, the first one would get up, repeat it and dismiss it as not new since he knew it already. Then the 'seconder' repeats it and confirms it; etc.

And the aspirant is shooed away.

Then there is this very poor and needy brahmin (all needy deserving folks happen to be brahmins like me and Saswat) in whose hut Kalidas is hiding incognito. He narrates this business going on in the Court to Kalidas who feels grateful to his poor host and so composes a shlok and asks the brahmin to go recite it as his own.

When this poor chap recites it and claims his pot of gold, the Eksandhagrahi falls stunningly silent; and so also all his followers. Bhojraj grants the brahmin his quota of sovereigns, but asks his sepoys to imprison him till he reveals the whereabouts of the real author of that baffling shlok.

The nouveau riche brahmin had to tell the truth and lead Bhojraj to his hut, where the usual happy ending takes place between the King and his First Love.

The shlok reads: "Rajan, your father owed my father a million gold sovereigns; your grandfather owed my grandfather a thousand hectares etc".

If the Eksandhagrahi repeats it and claims that it is nothing new and he knew it always, the contents of the shlok are confirmed and Bhojraj had to redeem his father's and grandfather's preposterous debts of honor.

So, he falls silent. And they all fall silent.

What a clever ruse!!!

Can we please have something like that for a Physics Nobel?

*******************************************************************************

P.S. The only Bibliophobe I met in real life is my 8-month-old Ishani:

She first tears up into bits and pieces the day's Deccan Chronicle and strews them all around her (serves them right for not publishing my Letters).

And then she climbs on my bed and 'reads, chews and digests' the fat "Collected 'Now & Again' pieces of The Statesman".

Serves them right too; for the same reason!

***********************************************************************

============================================================