I am a book lover, in the right sense. I say this because my friend Ananth is also a book lover in a different way. He has a huge collection of books that he has never read and probably has no intention of reading. Perhaps he preserves the books; Maybe he is the epitome of book buyers (the printed version) that every author would love to have in his black book.
Back to the point, I like buying and reading books. I do not have the habit of putting up bookmarks in my books to continue from where I had left, nor do I “doggy-ear” any corner of the page. Instead, I make a mental note of the page number. To forget is becoming humane, and I am no math lover to remember every number. Sometimes I go a few pages before and start all over again, disrupting my reading pleasure a bit, but I don’t complain.
Today on the bus, I was reading my book (I have started reading again BTW). The routine check came when I had reached my workplace – so I turned my book upside down, showed my ID and went back to my book. As I turned the book over, I was horrified – a portion of the page I had been reading was torn!! A shape by no means that would warm the heart of an arts teacher or fetch me an A in a trigonometry drawing class – my heart sank.
I have pledged to be more careful in the future and bring no harm to my precious books…
