Notes on nostalgia

Birds of memory come to perch in every book. In some, they flap their wings and fly up; in some others, they gently fold wings and rest; in yet others, they peck and comb their wounds dry. In every book, there’s the ring of bird talk, the twitter of memory birds, be it the memory of authors or that of readers; of those that gift books or those that receive them. P.K. Rajasekharan, in

Bookstalgia tell us that a book is a space where times and memories, come to roost.

The book speaks not only of the nostalgia for books but it also brings to life the never-known or long-forgotten makers and masters of Malayalam literature who had dedicated their lives to the making and printing of books in the language such as Kalahasti Appan, Sreekandeswaram G. Padmanabha Pillai, Easwara Pillai, Chavara Achan, Vidwan K.Prakasham, Achutathu Vasudevan Moose, Paramel Ayip Chummar and the like. It introduces the readers to a host of books that reigned half a century ago such as the ethereal Russian fairy tales, which daubed colours in the minds of a generation that toddled four to five decades ago. Yemelya, the lazy boy in the cold land of Russia, lets go a fish he caught and in return, gets a boon. All his work thus gets done in a jiffy. A lost world of five decades ago where hundreds of children lived and wanted to live on forever, thus reappears in tantalising colours in the book. Each chapter of the book, complete in itself like a short story, and sometimes carrying extensive notes which number up to 50, tells us of some book or event or person important in the history of books or book-writing or book-printing in Kerala.

Books of all sorts – Malayalam readers of the third and fourth grades, Sabda Tharavali – the authentic Malayalam book of words, the marvellous translations of Bengali novels, the Dalit writing of K.K.Govindan, detective stories and scholarly journals, pass before the readers’ eyes as if in a pageant. The lesser books that never made it to the honourable mainstream literature such as the precious little book of chants that mothers bought and kept in their wooden boxes which smelt of naphthalene balls, the song books that were sold in the festival grounds, the books of match box pictures, also find mention and a local habitation in Bookstalgia . Marginalised rustic songs that take us back to a world of waywardness, tolerance and love give us a glimpse of the simple values of village life of those times.

Bookstalgia effortlessly blends literature, culture and history. A well-researched book told in a deceptively simple style, a fine literary account of a generation’s reading habits, a riveting tale of printing and publishing in Malayalam, and an insightful narration of the birth of modernity in Kerala, it is a fascinating book that defies categorisation.

Bookstalgia

P.K. Rajasekharan

Mathrubhumi Books