So where've you been? 30 Kolkata, India again
Last time I was in Kolkata, my train took 23 hours to get there (8 hours longer than expected: 23 hours of no fans, no seat, trying to sleep on top of my luggage, the only inhospitable indian family in the whole country, raw sewage spilling through the carriage), I missed my plane, I ended up waving eleven inch knives at strangers, the heat made me vomit four times a day, and everyone - everyone I met cheated me.
So this time was to be different. Calmer. Relaaaaaaaax.
I was looking for some science fiction books in the ritziest bookshop in Kolkata, and they file everything with the tag 'science' together on one shelf. Stephen Hawking is next to Douglas Adams. The race to uncover the secrets of DNA next to Terry Pratchett.
Weird way to make you look twice at something you think you know.
Their fiction section, too, only went as far as S.
I thought I was missing something, like an entire wall, maybe, and asked about W. They said they can't possibly find me a W author without knowing the last as well as first letter of his name. I did a double take that only someone who's seen beaky in Buck Rogers in the 24th century lately would recognise (a sort of 'biddly-biddly-hunh?') (do excuse me, I've eaten a lot of sugar.)
So I asked about the rest of the alphabet. They said there aren't many authors after S in the world. "No good authors after S, madam. We do not stock after S."
I asked about T. They said there were some good T authors, but they generally mixed them in anywhere.
I said it seemed an odd thing, strangely random to discriminate against a whole part of the alphabet. What about U? What about ... V?
At the idea of there being an author worth stocking who began with V, the chappie shook his head, mystified, and walked away.
In case I didn't make it clear: Biggest. Bookstore. In The City.
India's insane. In a head-wobble, cutesy, I'll knife you if you don't give me that rupee sort of a way.
So this time was to be different. Calmer. Relaaaaaaaax.
I was looking for some science fiction books in the ritziest bookshop in Kolkata, and they file everything with the tag 'science' together on one shelf. Stephen Hawking is next to Douglas Adams. The race to uncover the secrets of DNA next to Terry Pratchett.
Weird way to make you look twice at something you think you know.
Their fiction section, too, only went as far as S.
I thought I was missing something, like an entire wall, maybe, and asked about W. They said they can't possibly find me a W author without knowing the last as well as first letter of his name. I did a double take that only someone who's seen beaky in Buck Rogers in the 24th century lately would recognise (a sort of 'biddly-biddly-hunh?') (do excuse me, I've eaten a lot of sugar.)
So I asked about the rest of the alphabet. They said there aren't many authors after S in the world. "No good authors after S, madam. We do not stock after S."
I asked about T. They said there were some good T authors, but they generally mixed them in anywhere.
I said it seemed an odd thing, strangely random to discriminate against a whole part of the alphabet. What about U? What about ... V?
At the idea of there being an author worth stocking who began with V, the chappie shook his head, mystified, and walked away.
In case I didn't make it clear: Biggest. Bookstore. In The City.
India's insane. In a head-wobble, cutesy, I'll knife you if you don't give me that rupee sort of a way.
posted by Lectrice at sábado, mayo 06, 2006
2 Advice:
Look at the bright side. Now you have a good excuse for not having read War and Peace. "Simply couldn't find it!"
Wonder where they put the local Nobel laureate Tagore?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabindranath_Tagore
Next to Jackie Collins perhaps?
Heh. Tagore gets his own /wall/ of course.
It got worse yesterday. I asked if I could take a book in. "But I only want to read it in the cafe, y'see!"
"Ah-char madam - but only the cafe, yes! No looking at books in our bookshop. Only cafe."
"Errr .. ok."
"Wait a minute, madam, let me see book," and security guard number pickypicky takes from me my copy of Mark Tully's incredibly well known travelogue, 'No Full Stops in India', "Is okay, madam, is okay. We would not sell this book anyway."
I didn't dare ask if it was because of his dodgy political views on Indian politics / postcolonial attitudes ... or ... because his name begins with T.
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