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The lending library of my youth was still around! Initially, I couldn’t believe my eyes. All these years and it was still there, in the same shopping center in Ashok Nagar. I had been to the shopping center twice in the past week, walked past these same set of shops -- just in this India visit -- but I had somehow missed the lending library. I was sure that there had been an electronics store, or a camera store, but there it was – the lending library. There was a thick curtain on the doorway, which I parted and I walked in.
The shop was manned by a thin man my age, give or take a couple of years, in an over-tight T-shirt. The T-shirt accentuated his belly, the way it did for certain men. His face looked vaguely familiar. He sat in one corner of the room, facing the door. Behind him, there were three aisles full of books. The man was staring at me intently.
“Prasad?!” he asked. Other than my close relatives, hardly anyone else calls me Prasad. I didn’t know who this was.
“Who are you?” I asked him in Tamil.
“You used to rent so many books here. Ayyo, you have forgotten me, haven’t you?” he mock-smiled.
I became defensive.
“Well, it was a long time ago. It was around –”
“1981,” he said.
“Come in. Come in, and take a look.” I moved closer to the bookshelves.
“You used to rent a lot of these. Five Find-outers and the Dog. Alfred Hitchcock novels.” Those books hadn’t truly authored by Hitchcock. It was a series called Alfred Hitchcock Presents, but I didn’t say anything.
There were no other customers in the library. I recognized most of the books. It was like looking at the bookshelf of someone you hadn’t visited in years. The books were all there, almost as if the intervening years hadn’t intervened at all. His bookshelves triggered a spate of memories. Even back then I had outgrown the Secret Seven series. The idea of seven little kids drinking copious amounts of lemonade and eating a nauseating number of cookies and solving grown-up crime had grown tiresome. But I was hopelessly addicted to the Famous Five, the Five Find-outers and the Dog. I could read any number of Hardy Boys mysteries. I recalled how disappointed I had been when I learned that Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys had the same author. Mallory Towers.
He also had an impressive collection of Harold Robbins novels. It looked like he owned the entire collection, and multiple copies of many titles. Apparently they were extremely popular with his patrons.
The guy followed me to the aisles. “Prasad, didn’t you once start something called the RPM lending library?”
I looked at him in disbelief. I couldn’t believe that this stranger remembered something that I was sure even my cousin had forgotten. He shrugged, “Well, you mentioned it to me once.” The RPM lending library had been named after the initials of both of our first names. We had collected a trunk full of books, awful books that no one in their right minds would read.
There was large silver boom box over to the side by him, with columns of flickering red and green lights in a small display window. Music was seeping into the library from hidden speakers. A new song started and the tune seemed familiar, haunting and familiar.
“You don’t recognize the song?” he asked when he saw me looking at this stereo.
I shook my head.
“Didn’t you see Rosapoo Ravikkai kaari?” he asked.
“No, I was too young at the time.”
“But you surely know the song. SPB. This is an instrumental version, uses morsing.”
I still shook my head again.
“Uchi Vaguntheduthu, Prasad!”
Once he mentioned it, I recognized it easily. I hadn’t noticed before that the song had such a haunting start.
There had to be an explanation for all this, this over-familiar guy with his lending library intact. I didn’t believe in time warps. It was like being confronted with a mate-in-three chess problem. My mind was relentlessly looking for and discarding explanations, unable to find the right combination, but knowing that there had to be one.
So when he pointed to the folding chair in front of his desk, I sat down obediently. I had to understand what the heck was going on. Instead what I got was a series of reminders of my life in Ashok Nagar – things that I had not thought of in over twenty years.
I didn’t even know who this guy was, but he seemed to know an awful lot about me. “Remember PTC, Prasad?” he asked. “The Police Training College. You used to jump the compound wall and go there in the evenings to play with all those kids, didn’t you?”
And then, “Prasad, do you still watch Wimbledon matches with the same eagerness?” It had been years since I had seen a tennis game on TV. “Do you remember how Pat Cash ran up the stands and kissed his girlfriend, scandalizing the prim English crowd?” He was messing with me. But I wasn’t too fazed even though it had been over a dozen years since I had last thought of Pat Cash.
And then, “Do you remember Veetukku Veedu Vassapadi? I think you told me you saw it in Vijaya Theater, with your classmates.” I didn’t remember telling this guy anything. Also, I had seen the movie with my cousins, not classmates as he had said, but I didn’t correct him.
That haunting song ended and the music turned a lot more upbeat, though I didn’t recognize the new song. “Veththala veththala veththalayo, Prasad! Malaysia Vasudevan. See how he’s singing, jolly_ya” It was possible that I had known this song, but even if so, I had completely forgotten all about it. Looking at the guy, it occurred me that he lived and cared for completely different things than myself. The rest of us had moved on to another century, but he was still living in the 80’s.
Then, I told myself that his knowledge of my life in Ashok Nagar shouldn’t be that shocking. Maybe he remembered things because he had lived there all these years.
But then things started to get a bit more personal.
“Prasad, do you remember Orissa Tailors? You and your brother used to get shirts stitched by them. Identical shirts!” He laughed as if that was hilarious.
“Remember how your mother would make the parathas, and you would sometimes buy a nice bowl of vegetable kuruma?!” Yes, I recalled that. I would cross the road and buy it from the Udipi hotel. It used to cost just one rupee, and it was sufficient for the four or five of us for tiffin. But how could this guy know so much about me?
“And remember how you walked with and dropped off your brother, the little guy, to Jawahar Vidyalaya on his first day of school?” I told him that the little guy had cleared the Administrative Services exam and was now sub-collecting in western TamilNadu. The disbelief on his face was priceless.
Someone other than myself could have known everything he was mentioning. But no one person other than myself could have known it all, all these insignificant details that I myself had long forgotten.
“Remember how you used to look longingly at the white maida chappatis that one fellow used to bring for lunch, with the bright red tomato chutney?” That conjured up the name of my classmate Padmanabhan, a name I hadn’t thought of in over a dozen years. There was absolutely no explanation to how someone else could have known all this about me.
How could he have known all this? Were people talking about me behind my back? I began to see that even confident people could have spells of paranoia.
It wasn’t the least bit logical, and yet it started to make some sense in a convoluted way. It was sort of like running into an old forgotten buddy, who remembered a lot more than I did. Except that I couldn’t recall ever having such a buddy.
A mailman walked in to the library, placed a few pieces of mail on the desk and quietly walked out. This prompted him to ask, “Hey Prasad, whatever happened to Arumugam, who used to come to Thiruvanmyur?” He was smiling now. He was asking me about another postman, my grandparents’ postman, someone I hadn’t thought of in years and years.
“Remember PTC buses? You were crazy about traveling my bus. You used those tokens and traveled to all the weird bus stops.” Yes, I had done that, but how on earth could this guy know all that?
“And, and do you remember Boat Road?” He didn’t bother hiding his smile.
Now I was truly shocked. He couldn’t possibly have known about the code that only myself and my brother knew. As soon as the 47V bus crossed the Aranganathan Subway, right after Srinivasa Theater, my brother and I would head for the seats as far back as possible. The potholes in that area were so numerous that the ride towards North Usman road seemed to us like a boat ride. But to my knowledge, no one other than my brother and myself knew that we called it “boat road.” This was getting scary.
A little boy peeped into the lending library from between the split in the curtain.
“Shall I order something for us to drink?” he asked.
“No, please.” I protested politely. “It is really not necessary.”
“Don’t worry. This is good coffee, not Viva!” Again, the same smile. I figured that this was his way of indicating to me that he knew that I wasn’t a fan of the malt drink called Viva. I hadn’t even thought of Viva for years.
Turning to the boy, he shouted in Tamil, “Daai, bring two coffees. Not from your store. Get them from the stall in front of the saloon, behind Chitra Stores. Get two special coffees” The old joke was that “special” meant that the coffee glass would be washed before being filled and served.
He was not done reminding me about buses. “You once took 47V on a Sunday in the opposite direction, just to see where it came from every day, remember?” he smiled again. My spine went cold with fear and I stood up. I knew that I hadn’t mentioned that 47V ride to anyone, ever.
“Don’t be scared, Prasad. I was just showing off. Please sit down. The coffee will be here now.”
It was getting late, I wasn’t having any luck figuring out who on earth this guy was but I couldn’t leave since he had ordered coffee for me.
“I have been blabbering too much. Tell me a little about you.”
“Me? Well…”
“Yes, you. Did you go to Dubai? You had grand ideas of bartering water-for-oil in the Middle East!” He was mocking me.
“No, I have settled in the US,” I said.
“Did you get into a socially useful profession? You always wanted to, illa?”
“Well, I work for an airline now…”
“Ah, so you are now helping people get to wherever they want to go,” he said, in that overly bright voice that they use while handing out consolation prizes.
Out of courtesy I updated him about my parents, my brothers and my relatives. He seemed to know at least a little about all of them.
The boy arrived, with the coffee in two clear glasses placed in a wire handle. I took a sip. The taste was indeed special.
According to the pendulum clock on the wall, it was 1.30 in the afternoon, which meant that it was 3 am back in Chicago. And here I was in a shopping center drinking special coffee with someone from my past life I didn’t quite remember.
“But, Prasad, did you go on adventures? You were always hoping to go on “adventures.” I think all those Enid Blyton books that you read – pointing broadly to the shelves of books behind him -- got to you!” He smiled, to show that there was no derision intended.
I was telling him that I was sorry but I had completely forgotten most of these things that he seemed to remember in vivid detail. That turned out to be the wrong thing to say.
“You may have forgotten, Prasad. But I haven’t forgotten anything.” I knew enough not to say anything and sipped my coffee intending to finish it so I could take my leave.
“You know, once you got into IIT, you never came to visit us here in Ashok Nagar, he said. His petulant tone made him sound like a wife nagging. “You never came back once.”
The force of his statement made me look up, and was surprised to see his eyes brimming.
There are few things more awkward than a grown man on the verge of tears. I stared into the depths of my special coffee.
Why was this guy putting me on the spot? Like most complaints, there was some truth to what he was saying. The same year that I had joined college my father had been transferred to Bombay. With my parents and brothers gone, I had seen no reason to come back to Ashok Nagar. Adyar was home to Murugan Lending Libray, which was considerably bigger. And I had been too young to grasp the concept of looking back at things. Nostalgia isn’t for the young. So, for my weekend breaks from college, I had instead gone to visit relatives in Adyar, Shastri Nagar and Thiruvanmiyur.
“Prasad, I would like to come and meet your parents, and your brothers. I have heard so much about all your relatives, and I would like to meet them.” I saw him hesitate. “Hey, do you think I could come to your Uncle’s party?”
I had mentioned to him that my uncle was having a big get-together at his place the next day and that there would be 30-40 people visiting.
“Oh, I don’t know.” I hadn’t expected this unusual request. I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to bring along a guest without asking my uncle or my parents, and I still didn’t even know who this person was.
He sensed my reluctance. “Hey, don’t worry about it. It was just a crazy thought I had.”
The situation had grown uncomfortable. My coffee glass was empty, and so I got up again and told him I had to leave.
“Prasad, come back and visit me whenever you come to this area again, okay? I am always here.”
Back in my parents place in T.Nagar, I didn’t say a word to anyone. I was heading back to Chicago the next day, and I was already beginning to miss Chennai even though I was still there. I didn’t sleep much that night. I came to understand that there is a tyranny of memory. I don’t really know whence the tyranny comes from. Perhaps from a lifetime of opportunities squandered, pleasures under-appreciated. When we meet someone from our past, we have to confront the finality of all our elusive dreams turning into the truly unattainable. The guy at the lending library had reminded me of all the paths not taken, the tyranny of memory.
The next day I was all packed for my return trip to Chicago. After finishing the sumptuous lunch that my mother had prepared for me, I hopped on to an auto-rickshaw from T.Nagar to Ashok Nagar. I couldn’t possibly stay away without getting to the bottom of this. When I walked into the shopping center, there was no lending library there. In the exact same spot stood a photo studio. I didn’t see the fellow anywhere, though I did see his picture among the dozens of photos on the widow displays in the studio.
I parted the thick-cloth curtain and entered the dark studio. A young lady looked up from her computer where she seemed to be chatting.
I had disturbed her peace, and her expression of annoyance was unmistakable. “Photo edukkanuma, Sir?”
“Illa.” I hesitated before asking, “Do you know where I could find that other gentleman…the one with the lending library?” But even as I asked I knew that it was hopeless. Her blank expression was answer enough.
Whoever or whatever it was, was gone before I could grasp it firmly. Meanwhile, I had a party at my uncle’s place in Aynavaram to get ready for, a Lufthansa plane to catch later that night. I parted the curtain again and walked out into the blinding Chennai sunlight.
Ram Prasad
August 2004
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