Thursday, August 7, 2008

Painfully and Guiltfully Wishful.

The library seems like a strange place. Books books books.
Stored in them the fights, the misunderstandings, the sorrows, the victories, the losses, the yet-another-tries, the patience.
Law. A law library.

Who will cry if a law library gets burnt up?
Most definitely not the students i hope. Excuse for extension in deadlines.
Others glad to keep to themselves stealthily the issued copies to themselves.
Teh librarian happy to have off for a week or two.
Scholars yes might die, but relevance? Lessened contributions towards a hypothetical library which the next generation might have to itself.
My dislike towards libraries is not usual. I was tolerable of libraries as a child.
Nancy Drews. Hardy Boys. Agatha Christies. Robin Cooks. Sweet Valleys. Grishams.
I have grown up envying the book racks taller than me.
Never having ever thought of even a spark in the same. And here i think of a burning library.
I guess its memories the place creates.

Library period coming only once a week, it used to be a joy escaping the tyrannies of the Ma'ams and Sirs for a span of thirty minutes, making the library a desirable place to be at.
But when you begin to associate libraries with deadlines, sleeplessness, surprise tests, issuing/loaning disputes, book hiding, there is not much to look forward to.

Yes, I would pity the burning copy of the day's Hyderabad Times and those books in the fiction section. But the rest of the meek-turned-violent me might not feel a trace of sadness as the contractual violation enumerated on a page goes up in flame.

PS: This is a phasic feeling, which is essentially temporary. This should not be seen as contempt towards books: fiction, scholarly, legal ne sort! This is a meagre expression of disgust of a student who has been recently exposed to the worthlessness of her library having been stuck in the middle of her research with a deadline approaching her at the speed of light.
She surely loves books, even now.

1 comment:

X said...

Haha, yeah...law school libraries jusr take the fun out of books, I can understand