Aashish's blog

There is a strange timelessness in reading an old book because it is a physical piece of history. A book carries stories about not only the protagonists and antagonists but also about the countless readers who read the book. In a way, the readers themselves become part of the “plot” that the book carries with it.

The crease at the end of the chapters add another layer of history to the original plot. Holding an old book is almost like meeting grandma as a kid. She is sweet and innocent like kids; she has the same childishness, and carefreeness as we once did as kids. But contrasting to her demeanour is her body - it is covered with stretched and wrinkled skin; it bears witness to the countless lives and stories it was once part of. Similar to our grandma, an old book, too, bears witness to the countless lives it has been part of. The spice-stained pages, the tear wrinkled edges and the sun-dried fluffy pages bear witness to both important and frivolous events of a life that has passed. The person who lived that life may be alive or long dead but his remnants continue to live and be part of other reader’s lives through books. If the person is alive, does he ever think about these spice-smeared pages? Does he remember how his tears shriveled these edges? Or has he forgotten these pages and also the events that caused the deformation?

Sometimes I recur these ideas on myself. Have I forgotten important events of my life? Have the remnants of those events been part of someone else’s life or have they all vanished? Will I live in people’s mind as a single person or will I disintegrate into little unidentifiable cues in old shabby books?