One sultry September afternoon in 2001 I stopped at College Street like many other afternoons, on my way back from Jadavpur, to pick up copies of Milton criticism that I had ordered at Saha Book Company. Oldtimers know no one is Saha there. When Sahada’s concern had split into three, the man himself having to move to another corner of College Street—a sleepy lane devoid of the feel of the place—by an irony of the logic of commercial metamorphosis, no one in the other two segments any longer bore the name Saha, though all the three concerns carried it. They had split sometime in late July, and I had kept my visits restricted since then to Sahada’s new shop out of a sense of loyalty. For some secondary material I was looking for, it was Sahada who said that those books had gone to one of the other shops when they divided up the property, the one called Saha Book Company, on the other side of Presidency College, and I could ask there. So I had no choice but to order my stuff from them, but thankfully, something of Sahada still survived in that newly independent segment of the old concern, for as I was to discover that day, some characters still had it in them like him to be occasionally generous to cash-strapped college students. With Sahada, it would show as something more than just business sense, for he belongs to a generation of College Street booksellers, now
passé perhaps, who would always be remembered by students and academics alike for their ability to provide books at good price. It's a pity he will never have the capital to set up a bigger bookshop and be more mainstream, and would always be frowned upon by more established booksellers for his alternative bookselling practices. When I stepped into that more-than-normally crowded bookshop that afternoon it did not seem that the experience had any chance of being memorable, for then that College Street day seemed extraordinary only in terms of the extraordinarily warm weather. I was almost praying for rain even though I knew a drop of rain from the retreating monsoons would spell trouble with so much printed matter to carry.
I still remember the crowd of new college students in the shop—regulation mob at College Street at that time of the year—shouting out titles from Calcutta University’s undergraduate syllabus, keeping the few staff on their toes, which meant they had little time for other customers. As soon as my pile on
Areopagitica descended on the front desk from the mysterious mezzanine regions above, I counted out the money and prepared to leave. Turning away, I spotted on one of the shelves an Oxford volume titled
Colonial and Postcolonial Literature by an unfamiliar author: Boehmer. Knowing I could not afford the expensive-looking book with what remained in my wallet after my purchases, I hesitated to ask if I could see the book, and even as I hesitated I remember marvelling at what seemed to me unusual typography on the spine—the font with which ‘Oxford’ was printed, not the usual kerned font. Following my gaze, the man at the desk—Sahada's erstwhile assistant—asked if I would like to have a look at the book. When I said I would rather come back another day for I would not be able to buy it even if I liked, he still insisted and had the book brought out by an assistant. So I watched the book emerge from their newly-made sparkling glass bookcases, drifting over a sea of unknown heads, changing hands twice before I finally held it.
In a few seconds of flipping through, I knew that this was one book to begin with for someone just making first forays into postcolonial studies. The accessibility of Boehmer’s presentation appealed instantly, and the range that that slim volume covered seemed impressive. What was even more interesting for me was that Boehmer seemed to dwell at length on the British modernists. I had just had my first sustained academic exposure to high modernist literature, and was completely swept off my feet by TS Eliot and Virginia Woolf, and even as I quickly read a few of Boehmer’s paragraphs on them, felt terribly shaken. Something had vastly changed in those few minutes for me—I did not know how to articulate. In all the confusion of the shop and the heat rising from the ground, as it were, all I could decide was that I needed to read that book whether or not I finally agreed with Boehmer’s assessments, and I had a gut sensation that given the assymetries of book distribution, I would have to buy it to read it in Calcutta, for even if it had been published in 1995, that book wouldn’t be available right then in the libraries even in the city that calls itself the city of booklovers.
I must have flipped through the book for about fifteen minutes if not more, and to my request for reserving the book for the by-then ridiculous amount of 30 rupees (that would have left me with 8 rupees, just enough for some
jhaalmuri and the bus-ride home), Sahada’s former assistant responded very generously offerring that I take the book home and pay anytime later. The price came to 620 rupees, after discount, and it was highly unusual for a small business as theirs to allow such latitude even to a regular customer. Having thanked him, I made my way through the lane towards the bus stop happy as a child. True to my fears, a torrential downpour ensued as the bus neared my stop, but I was able to shield my new acquisitions well as I hurried home.
Boehmer opened up several windows, needless to say. It hurt for a long time that modernists were such masked imperialists, and I did not know how to deal with this painful disenchantment—if I loved poco, all that was left me was to love them as one continues to love an affectionate even if ill-tempered grandparent. Boehmer’s book completely defined my experience of Conrad and Achebe, and so much else, and I still find myself going back to that little book with which it all began. I haven’t let go, nor has the book let go of me, for like a faithful, almost talismanic old map, it puts things in place when I am a little mystified, or since I have grown up a little, lets me ask questions that I can then go pursue elsewhere.
5 December 2007. The street outside is called University Place. The unwalled campus and small to medium businesses—eateries and coffee shops and photocopy joints—that have grown up around the university have a strangely Calcutta University-
para feel about them, despite all differences. Following Theo d’Haen’s talk on Conrad, I know that Elleke Boehmer and Alison Donnell would speak as respondents. The talk has begun though the respondents have still not arrived. I wonder if they have cancelled, but somewhat morose, I don’t ask anyone. Two white women enter, and I know it’s them, but keep guessing who’s who till someone addresses Elleke Boehmer by name when it’s time for questions. They speak briefly after it is all over, and people get chatty over wine. I lurk around, waiting for my chance to talk. For the seemingly endless minutes I stand near her waiting, College Street floods my memory. She turns to me finally, and I ask a small question on Conrad, and after she answers, I thank her for her book, and briefly recount my first encounter with it. All I can manage to say is that I had no money to pay (nor even that I did eventually pay the bookseller—does she think he just gave it away to me?!), and that it was a very formative experience to read her, but nothing at all about how hot it was. She’s delighted to know the effect the book has had on me and wants to know where I am from, and where this encounter took place, and tells me how someone first read her book as a photocopy in Bangladesh. As we finish talking, I glance over her shoulder at the window. It's snowing. The season’s first snow in New York.
© Text: DURBA BASU 2008
