Matters of Textual Importance

I've been having this internal 'Get a Kindle or not' battle for weeks now. One part of me says I ought to wait for another two generations to be out at least. It points out that actually, e-books are just as expensive as brand new books and you can't get them second hand so if nothing else, the sentimnetalist hard-copy lover wins for purely economic reasons (cheapness? :D).

It sounds very cool as such ... zooming facility, font adjustment, being able to read even in the sun, being able to carry a 1000 books with you wherever you go ... but I don't see how it might replace the physical book. I think there will always be the need for physical books. If the day comes when people stop printing books, I won't be eating my words, I'll merely be ruing the loss of something so irreplaceable.

I can see where an e-reader might be useful. Students needn't carry a zillion textbooks/references around, it's all there in one handy package. And you could still squiggle all you like in the margins. One could possibly write/read a 'live' book which becomes available on a chapter basis as it's written. It has possibilities, no denying that.

Books are a personality thing I think. The book you're carrying says something (a lot, perhaps) about you. It can be a conversation opener, an in-joke, a point in itself. A cover is a peerless advert by itself.

But buy an e-reader and you lose out on that. It's going to be the next ipod/iphone. Owning one would make me just another standard issue hi-class-piece-of-technology owner. No more surreptitious glances from people around me when I carry The Ex-boyfriend's Handbook, no amused smiles when I'm walking on the road with the book in my hand upside down (which amuses me in turn. It's not like I'm reading WHILE I'm walking! Come to it, holding the book upside down would actually make reading when walking easier), no more being the frills-and-furbelows girl reading Neverwhere, or the girl who looks like she'd bite your head off but can be seen smiling fondly as she reads The Wedding Officer. No more. Instead, all you have is just another person with a square tablet that looks no different from someone else's. I don't think this is necessarily an upgrade, the saving space, upgrading to something niftier. In a sense, it's loss of individuality.

Heck, what about things like books launches?! What about standing in queue to get the author sign your copy? What about waiting to buy something very special, like the 50th anniversary copy of To Kill a Mocking-bird? There won't BE a 50th anniversary copy as such considering they'd look and feel just the same electronically (at this point anyway). And what will the author do, sign your e-reader? Or sign your e-book with an e-signature but honestly, that ain't good enough for me. Give me ink any day. And paper.

Thank you, Chandni, for inspiring this post. I must admit that I actually wrote the entire post in your comment window :-| (which just goes to show that what they say about a change of scenery being inspiring really is true!)

"Oh grandma! What big dreams you have!"


"All the better to live Life with, dear."

Catty: there are 3 FAT crows sitting on the tree outside.. i think they're scaring bottlebrushthey're frikkin huge.HOW can a tiny branch support these huge creatures???  Me: I've NO ideano wait

  actually

  I do

It must be a 'special branch'.     Yeah, so, what's new? With you, I mean!   

Some things just don't get old

Like the fact that roughly two years later, there isn't a single day I go by without talking to you.* Or the fact that you laugh at the silliest things I say, when you're not finishing me off with that quintessential 'tch'. Or the fact that as the days go by, you only proceed to evolve into a self-contained support system that lends me a ear, a shoulder, a rant-outlet, career advice, wisdom. And otherwise simply continues to add to my happiness with mere presence.

If this were the me of a few years ago, I could have managed an effusive and articulate ode celebrating you. But then again, maybe the me of a few years ago wouldn't have made friends with you. But knowing that you'll get what I'm saying, despite the taciturnity ...

I hope that some day I will be the secure, confident, content and wise person you are.

Happy Birthday Catty ... because you don't age, you evolve :)



*And yeah, I was very serious about using Tuesday as a point of no-contact, if ever ;)

Bella's bumper sticker

'My boyfriend sucks'

Cliff Notes

Looking at her, nobody would ever have said she lived life on the edge. Or ever had. She wasn't adventurous, boisterous or even curious.

In fact, you'd be hard pressed to come up with anything to say about her. She was the sort that blended into the shadows. It wouldn't be wrong to say that you'd never think of her.

Her side of the story though, was ... well, it was an entirely different story.

She felt she did live on the edge. On the edge of a very deep crag. And with every little thing that transpired, the temptation to find out what was at the end of that drop, up close and in person, only got stronger.

She thought of the deep end as her destination. Home.

But one day she looked up. At the vast sky and the far spreading mountains with their grass and trees and sweet smelling flowers. And felt the caress of a gentle breeze.

'Of course, it makes sense', she thought. 'Perspective '

Everybody lives life on the edge ... all that's different is whether you look up or down.

I'm not one to whinge about adulthood

Usually.

But there's something about the day that's making me wish it was the sort of summertime childhood blessed you with. The sort of summertime that involved Kirrin Island, picnics, swims and adventures in rural settings. Or at least, the summertime of blazing sushine, lazy afternoons spent in cool lofts or tree forks or even just the cool interiors of the house reading and fantasising about Enid Blyton's tales. And despite having eaten a lunch, drooling at the descriptions of food.

Thankfully, this time I can actually fix that bit.

What they don't warn you about

'Parting is such sweet sorrow'

It's pretty much a given that farewells are hard. Farewells to family. Farewells to the love of your life. Tempered with the promise of reunion and better times later, these farewells.

What no one cautions you against is the wrenching away, never to be united again the same way, disrupting perfectly peaceful harmony.

And it doesn't even hit you until ages later, just when you think you've come off okay, forgetting the soft, exposed, sensitive spot and leaving it open for a bull's eye score.

Like when your ex-housemate drives you home and just before leaving, says "Shame! Can no longer say goodnight and just trip off to the next room to sleep!".

Or like when you see the faces of two dear beloved people watching for you from inside a car as your bus is pulling out of the station.

You knew it was going to be temporary. You knew you had to go your separate ways one day. But who said that made it okay?

iQuit

You know all those scenes in the movies where someone's walking out huffily issuing dialogues of "Aaj se tumhara aur mera rishta khatam!"?

Some days I wish I could walk out of the human race and be done with it.

External Memory

Me to her (who else?): 


Keep it somewhere safe, and mark it. 

And tell me where you put it so I'll remember and you can ask me in case you forget.