Book Lending

In my previous post I talked about malcolm gladwell's book Blink. Actually, I didn't purchase it. How I got hold of it is another interesting story. Interested? Got time to kill? read on...

A couple of months ago I bought a cheap(read pirated) copy of malcolm gladwell's other(and more famous) book, The Tipping Point from...where else...the ubiquitous street book market, only in this case it happens to be the famous(at least for locals) sunday book market at koti, hyderabad. I started reading the book pretty religiously. Unfortunately, when I was just over half the pages through, got engaged otherwise - specifically with duties pertaining to earning daily bread. I think(pardon me for a little digression here), if leisure reading(and contemplation) would have served as the means of bread and milk for human kind, half of us would've been philosophers(don't ask about the rest half - they'd be women and as you know they'd still need to go shopping and do what not...i don't know really...and may be leave those homely philosophers to themselves) and the world would've been a very peaceful place. Now that was not to be. So, while my book was collecting dust...its saviour came in the guise of my friend. He got hold of book and read it and you know that's not enough - you need to tell people that you too have read a good book or two(pardon me raghu, if you are reading this..and if you feel like kicking me..you'll get the chance on my next B'Day ;)). So, he recommended the book to his friends and what was more offered to arrange the book for one of them...and exercising the rights of friendship(mine and his) got me to lend the book to some creature I've not yet known to read books. And then i knew one thing for sure(given whatever little experience i've with book lending business) that there are few(if any) chances of my book collecting the dust of my room again...

That's how book lending goes. The book keeps changing hands and the chain rarely closes on to the original owner..so did happen to my book - until last news, its lying with some guy in US...quite a fortunate book..its going places its owner is yet to go. But fortunately there was something that did give me hope...my aforementioned friend was to pay some 600 rupees to the guy who borrowed the book from me...and showing signs of prudence, he gave me those 600 rupees asking me to pay the guy if he happens to return my book...that was a nice triangle. And as you may have guessed, with this arrangement I'm almost sure to get the book back or the money(which is enough to buy a original copy) in lieu of it. For me, the former(getting book back) seemed far more probable because we all know what kind of paper we value more, not certainly the one found in books. So came the guy one day to reclaim his money...and may be to return my book as well...but to my surprise what he got for me was not The Tipping Point(the book i lent him) but another of the books by the same author - Blink. The reason cited was that he forgot which book he borrowed from me...I guess authors are more famous than books..now that was funny(and slighlty frustrating) to me. Nevertheless, i took the book he has to offer me and returned his money...i had no choice - you can fight for your money but you are not supposed to fight for your book..that's how it goes.

While in college, it used to be slightly different as we had a relatively small but beautiful world of our own - the college and the hostel(oh...even the slightest mention of these words causes a sweet heart-pain) and the lent book can be precisely located(provided the book doesn't suddenly starts obeying heisenberg uncertainty principle). There too, once a popular book is lent, it keeps going places(read rooms)...until someday the original owner enters his room and stares at his bookshelf, while he is still staring, trying to figureout what is amiss...the shelf cries out: "you pathetic bastard...don't you even remember you lent that book to some wretch?...now go and get it back". Thus this poor chap decides to reclaim the priceless copy of his otherwise forgotten book. But the task is not easy because by now the book has changed many hands. He starts from the guy he lent the book only to find that he inturn gave it to another guy who passed on to another....he goes from room to room but finds only pointers(praying the next pointer doesn't turn out to be a dangling one), getting more and more furious at every redirection and when he finally finds the book lying with some guy, he's so furious that he blurts out: "my friend, i don't care whether you've finished reading the book...i want it back right now"...bang!!...and thus he get's it back and resolves not to lend his books again.

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