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 possible. 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. They also provided me with a nice looking Tote Bag that was printed in the similar design
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 number - the thinne