It is a tragedy because no bookshop should close, ever.
It is a triumph because the kind of people who read books, who devour them, and relish them, and speak about them all the time, rarely make enough money to buy as many of them as they would like. Because, really, how could you ever put a figure on the number of books you need? And so, when the clearance sale begins, we watch the discount progress from fifty percent off, to seventy, to eighty, picking up more books at each step. And then, finally, when it hits ninety, we rush there, in silence, praying that we will get there before our fellow-readers. If you do manage to time it right, you walk away with some brilliant buys. And you know that every one of those books has found a loving home.
It causes guilt, because no one should feel triumph when a bookshop closes.
On the upside, the bad karma of feeling joy at paying thirty rupees for a book by J M Coetzee is partially offset by the good karma of treating that book the way it should be – you have rescued it from the recesses of a bookshop, the possible mildew of a go-down, the return to the publisher for pulping a damaged copy, or – worst of all – the hands of someone who makes dog-ears, and scribbles on the margins, and bends spines.
Also, your optimism is usually dampened by the sort of people you inevitably meet at these sales.
Recently, I spent less than five thousand rupees on ninety-eight books. I wasn’t counting. I filled three baskets, making two trips to my car with enormous plastic bags. It is a rare book you don’t want to buy even at a tenth of the cost.
But, despite spending three hours at the bookshop, my hair knotted firmly into a bun to stay off my face, my dupatta improvised into a towel, as I dug into piles of books and climbed the occasional shelf to reach the Ian McEwan I had spied between two John Grishams, I managed to hold several unsolicited conversations.
So, these are the categories of people I met:
The Vultures
They sense that you’re a good judge of books, the sort of person who will sniff out the wheat from the chaff. And so, they trail you, waiting for the odd book to fall out of one of your overloaded baskets.
“Are you not taking this?” they ask eagerly, pouncing on the book.
“I am!” you snarl, grabbing it back, flaring your nostrils and looking maniacally at the floor, searching for a book that just may have slipped while you were speaking to the vulture.
Some go so far as to try to distract you – “Hey, did you just drop a book?”
“No, I would have heard it fall,” you say, icily, daring him or her to come any closer to your loot.
The most decent breed of vulture comes up to you politely, and asks, “From which section did you get this book?”
“I don’t even remember,” you reply, usually honestly.
The Clueless-and-Unaware
These people think Jeffrey Archer ought, rightly, to have won a Nobel Prize.
They don’t recognise any of the names in your basket, but you look like you mean business.
“Tom Clancy is an excellent writer,” they tell you.
“Tom who?”
“Clancy. What are you buying? My Name is Red...what is it about?”
“The Nazis,” you reply.
They look at you, round-eyed. “What kind of book is it?”
“A murder mystery,” you reply, honestly.
“Where did you find it?”
The Clueless-and-Unashamed
These, I want to hit on the head with my basket. They’ve heard that there is a sale going on. The goods might just as well be sarees as books. All they care about is a good bargain.
"I don't read," they reply, "but it's ninety percent off..."
So, they come up to you and ask you for your recommendations, since, you know, you’re struggling with two baskets, and wishing you had said yes to the last gymbo who asked you out.
“I don’t know...depends on what you read,” you say.
“I don’t read,” they reply, “but it’s ninety percent off...”
“Like your IQ.”
No book deserves to rot in their homes. These are, in all likelihood, the kind of people who scribble in the margins of borrowed books, and then lend them to other borrowers without permission from the original lender.
The Romeos
You know that stupid blog which was doing the rounds a while ago, that “Date a girl who reads” thing? So, some idiots decided to take it seriously, and decided to shop for girls who shop for books.
So, there you are with your baskets, trying to make sure their contents don’t spill over, even as you’re trying to jam a few more into them – yes, I’m aware that this reads like porn – and there stands the kind of man who reads blogs about dating girls who read, smiling benignly at you.
“So...uh...do you read a lot?”
That’s the sort of pick-up line you might expect from the kind of man who reads blogs about dating girls who read. And there is only one response.
“What? Me? No. These are just to throw at people who annoy me.”