WHAT EDUCATED INDIANS READ

BOOKS OF THE DAY

By RANJEE G. SHAHAN' To know what books educated Indians read, I went, first, to my old college. I was well-acquainted with the librarian. Indeed, I had been friendly with him in my student days.

"What books do the students read ? " he repeated. "Well, these days the students read less. They are more interested in other things."

"For instance ? "

"In sports, cinemas, drinking-parties. No, the giants of other days are gone. The gentlemen now don't ask me for the kind of books I used to be asked for in your day. I don't think a single student has asked for The Brothers Karamazov —your favourite book. By the way, are you still fond of Dostoievsky ? "

"More than ever. But what books are read ? "

"Mostly those bearing on their studies and, of course, novels."

"What novels ? "

"Sax Rohmer, Edgar Wallace, Marie Corelli lead, with Robert Louis Stevenson, Scott and Anatole France trailing behind."

"Do they read Kipling ? "

"Oh Kipling ! He is taboo."

"Why taboo ? "

"Because the last Principal objected to him. He said that Kipling had lowered the prestige of Indians. So I had to put his books away."

"Do the students ever ask for E. M. Forster, T. S. Eliot, James Joyce, Stephen Spender, Aldous Huxley, Sean O'Faolain ? "

"The other day a lady student asked for The Waste Land. I gave it to her. Next day she returned it, saying : 'So this is the famous poem ! It is worse than Trigo.' I told her that poetry was read, not understood. But, really, the moderns are getting funny. I am a graduate, but I can make nothing of the new writers. Either they are getting too clever, or I am getting too stupid. Literature is meant to be enjoyed, not ached over. . . ."

Here a number of students trooped in. The librarian told me, "Watch what they take."

The first, a young man of about twenty-two, approached the desk with a slip and said timidly : "May I please have The Waverley?"

"Which book ? "

" The Waverley."

"But that is a series. Which particular novel do you want ? "

" Oh ! " he reflected and then said : "Which do you recommend ? "

The librarian sighed and attended to him. " Yes ? " he said to the next man.

"I want The Red Lily," he said.

"Everybody wants The Red Lily. Sorry, out."

"Well, then, can I have one of Edgar Wallace's books ? " "To be sure you can."

A third student, tall, lean, spectacled, asked : "Any further volumes of Marie Corelli ? "

"I believe you have finished the lot."

The rest all asked for Sax Rohmer and Dumas. Just as the librarian and I were about to continue our talk, a lady student click-clicked in.

"I should like three books, please," she said : "The Red Lily of — "

"Of Anatole France," said the librarian. "Sorry, Miss, out."

"The second is one of Paul Cocky's books."

"Sorry again, Miss. Paul de Cock seems to be in great demand just now." "All right. But have you something of Sax Rohmer ? "

"Once again, sorry, Miss. All his books are out."

"I have no luck. What shall I read ? "

The librarian, wishing to pay me a compliment, said : "Try

one of Dr. Shahani's books, Miss. The Coming of Karuna,

I am sure, will interest you."

"Who is Dr. Shahani ? A Sindhi ? "

"Yes, one of our old students."

"Well, can he write ? "

The librarian looked at me and winked.

"Try him, Miss."

"I'll have a look at the book. If I like the first page, I'll take it."

"Very good, Miss."

When she had the little volume, she said : "What a funny title ? What does it mean ? "

The librarian appealed to me for help.

"Read the sub-title, Miss," I said.

" ' A Vision of Creative Love '," she read aloud. "Now what is creative love ? "

"What class are you in, Miss," I asked.

"I'm a Senior B.A. student," she said, with a proud toss

of the head. Then she read the first sentence of the Author's Preface : "'All my life I have been a student, and hope to remain one to the end '," she read. "No, I don't think I'll have the book of a mere student."

"Very good, Miss," said the librarian. "Try Edgar Wallace. He was a student of detection."

The girl did not see the sarcasm. She went away with a volume in hand, glad that she had what she wanted.

* * * *

At a public library.. The man in charge is a Goanese,

assisted by a Eurasian girl. I ask him, after some desultory conversation, what the readers ask for here.

"Most of our subscribers are Europeans and Parsees," he said. "Novels are what they demand."

"What novels ? "

"Any that happen to be fashionable at the time."

"And what do the Indians take in ? "

"Mostly Reynolds, Charles Garvice, Marie Corelli, Sax Rohmer, Edgar Wallace."

"Have you in the library any books of the moderns ? "

"We have Scott, Dickens, Thackeray, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, Joseph Conrad."

So those were the moderns!

"Anything of Aldous Huxley, of E. M. Forster, of Charles Morgan ? "

"We have a Forster here. It is called A Passage to India."

" Is it in demand ? "

"Not much. Old Englishwomen ask for it mostly."

" Anything of T. S. Eliot ? "

"No, nothing."

"And what do the Parsees read ? "

" Novels, as I said. They take the same books as the English do. But there is one peculiarity about them. They like bigger type."

" Why ? "

"Don't you know ? Most of them, practically all of them, are suffering from some sort of eye-trouble."

"How's that ? "

"Inbreeding. The defect is perpetuated and increased.

Unless the Parsees intermarry, they will, in the course of some generations, become blind."

Then I recalled that I had scarcely seen a Parsee without spectacles. To save their eyes, they read very little. Yet, of all Indians, they are the most literate.