Dateline Delhi

New Delhi. 28 October: It was a fine October evening when I met my favourite author William Dalrymple in Delhi.  It was 15th of October, and William was in the city, after a long tour across the United Kingdom related to the promotion of his latest book “The Golden Road”, which is a saga of ancient India’s impact over the world. In it, discussing about many gifts of Ancient India to the world, Dalrymple argues that there was no silk route available in ancient times, and It were the ports of Ancient India that enabled the commerce between Ancient Rome and Ancient China. Dalrymple suggests that idea of Silk Road is a modern invention, and we find no mention of this word “Silk Road” in ancient or medieval records.  The book was originally released on 05th of September in UK and India. I was lucky to grab its signed Indian edition at Bahrisons Bookshop at Khan Market on 05th September itself...

  New Delhi. 02 January: For an Indian Student of Mass Communication, “The Art and Print Production” by Prof. NN Sarkar is considered a gold standard, particularly for those interested in Print Media. I studied this book thoroughly in my school days, much before entering the college. This book is so much sought after that its first edition copies are a rare find. In our college days, our college library had provided us with the xerox copies of this book, and I was the only person in my whole batch to own it’s rare First Edition Copy in my possession.  Well this NN Sarkar book is very interesting and talks in detail about the various aspects related to page setting, font selection, printing technologies, types of papers etcetera etcetera; But for the first time in my life it introduced me to the Grammage of  Paper, or the Paper-Weight. The “Grams Per Square Metre (GSM)” is a unit that defines the thickness of the printed paper. It is defined in numbers, the lower the ...

  Pragyaan on Moon New Delhi. 07 September: After playing in the open sun for long hours, little “Pragyan” is exhausted now, and is now going to sleep at his maternal home, the home - the courtyard of his “Moon” Uncle. As if scripted in the Jules Verne’s story and it’s film adaptation, the first Indian Traveller on Moon - “Rover Pragyan” is going to sleep comfortably under a warm blanket for the long lunar night.  Though I was in no mood to pen a piece, but it is such a historic moment that, I was compelled to author this brief write up. There is a popular lullaby in India “Chanda-Mama door ke” meaning “Uncle Moon sitting far away”. Every kid who is raised during past half century or so in India, knows this song by heart, and it goes like this “Uncle Moon who lives far away, is cooking doughnuts for the little baby. Uncle moon eats in the plate and the little baby eats in the small bowl”… So Moon is so much personal, like a relative in the Indian psyche. There is also a story ...

New Delhi. 17 August: Book Collectors are a very persistent lot. They can wait for decades to get just one book. A single copy of an out-of-print, thus rare book. I myself have waited for nearly two decades to get “Peter the Great” written by Alexei Tolstoy. Buratino. (c) pphbooks.net It was the winter of 2001 when I was first introduced to Alexei Tolstoy. I was a kid and we were visiting Allahabad, when I purchased “The Golden Key, or the adventures of Buratino”, a Russian equivalent of Pinocchio. The copy I got was in Hindi, and was a Soviet Print, published from Moscow. Later in 2004, I received another Hindi translation of A. Tolstoy’s “Engineer Garin’s Death Ray”, from “People’s Publishing House (PPH) Delhi. It was translated as “चार दिन की चाँदनी” (Chaar Din Ki Garin's Ray. (c) biblio.com Chandni, Four Days of Moonlight). It was a sci-fi fiction about Engineer Garin, who had discovered Laser Light. A year later in 2005, I purchased four volumes (out of six) of A.Tolstoy’ Col...

  Glue, Paper and Thread (c) Tom Murphy VII, Commons. New Delhi. 12 July: For a hobbyist Book binder, arranging essential raw materials is a Herculean task. If the books are old then one has to use material that can support book for many upcoming decades, in other words material should be of Archival-Quality. I believe, a book is composed of not just letters and ideas, but every book is a finished product comprising of Cloth, Paper, Thread and glue (of course book boards). Repairing a book is a task in itself because you want to retain the original shape of the book, and for that matter want to deploy the same materials and methods that were used by the original publisher / printing press. These all are Glue (c) Amy M Lavine, Commons People often ask what kind of glue available in India is archival in nature. Well I have only used Fevicol MR (PVA) till date, which has good flexibility, has archival properties, provides long term support to the spine of the book. But it has one big ...

JNU Rains. pallav.journo Wikimedia Commons. Can I ask the Rains, to pour over the, Courtyard of my beloved, To speak to her of my heart, To inform her of my restless soul, The same rains which- are pouring over me, She is also at this moment- praising the calmness of them, Smiling at the lush greenery  Can I ask you, the wind, To gently blow near my beloved, To spread the earthy-  smell of my garden, in the courtyard of my beloved O dear seasonal birds, For centuries I have not seen her, I am bound by my discipline, my oath, But you are so free, Do tell her of me. - Pallav 30/06/2022.