The pleasures of public libraries

One of the things I like most about Singapore is the chain of public libraries here.
I read books voraciously. In Bangalore, to satisfy my appetite for books I used to buy books every other weekend (What a pleasure that used to be!!!). Of course it was big drag on the monthly budget.

Here I find that that "fixed cost" can be taken care of rather simply by becoming a member of the National Library Board. Now suddenly I have three floors of books to choose from (apart from a floor of DVDs, VCDs and Video Cassettes). The first time I entered one of their branches close to my office, I felt like I was entering Alladin's Cave.

I guess I will have a lot of fun now especially with their History section.

There is only one pity though. I am only borrowing the books, not buying them for keeps. I wrote about books becoming friends in an earlier post. I will have to say bye bye to my new found friends only after three weeks of getting to know them....

No subject

When in silks you came and dazzled
Me with the beauty of your Spring,
You brought a flower to bloom -
Love within my being.

You lived with me, breath of my breath,
Being in my being, nor left my side;
But now the wheel of Time has turned
And you are gone - no joys abide.

You pressed your lips upon my lips,
Your heart upon my beating heart,
And I have no wish to fall in love again,
For they who sold Love's remedy
Have shut shop, and I seek in vain.

My life now gives no ray of light,
I bring no solace to heart or eye;
Out of dust to dust again,
Of no use to anyone am I.

Delhi was once a paradise,
Where Love held sway and reigned;
But its charm lies ravished now
And only ruins remain.

No tears were shed when shroudless they
Were laid in common graves;
No prayers were read for the noble dead,
Unmarked remain their graves.

The heart distressed, the wounded flesh,
The mind ablaze, the rising sigh;
The drop of blood, the broken heart,
Tears on the lashes of the eye.

But things cannot remain, O Zafar,
Thus for who can tell?
Through God's great mercy and the Prophet
All may yet be well

Thus wrote Bahadur Shah Zafar shortly before his transportation to Rangoon after the fall of Delhi in the 1857 mutiny. One of my colleagues used to exhort me to start appreciating poetry. I never listened to him. Now when I read such lines and something stirs in me, I remember him.

I have just begun reading "The Last Mughal" by William Dalrymple.

Its a pity that an Englishman needs to come to India, learn our language, unearth a treasure of previously un-researched work lying in the National Archives bang in the centre of Lutyens' Delhi and write a book which sets the record straight (atleast I hope so) about something that happened in India in 1857 which is so much a part of our national fabric.

Even today historians bicker about whether it was a general rebellion, a sepoy mutiny or the "First War of Indian Independence".

Apparently all of the arguments in that debate are based on the material provided by the Britishers while thousand of Urdu documents lay rotting in the vaults in Delhi and no one bothered to look!!!!

Either ways, I still cannot forget this poem as I turn off my light tonight to go to sleep.
Good night!