The Karma of Comics

One day Chacha Chaudhary and Sabu go for a walk. Two Thieves Makkan and Chakkan threaten them with a gun. Sabu gets angry and a Volcano erupts somewhere. But Choudhary, whose brain works faster than a computer, uses his stick to outwit Makkan and Chakkan and they run away"

Even comics like these have always been ridiculously entertaining. I remember the day I found another popular book. It was on a hot summer afternoon in 1987 I found an old & torn book which was hidden between newspapers on the top of a rack! It contained a story titled 'The Neem tree and the Grindstone'-Tinkle had arrived!

Today when I sit and recollect my association with these books, I realize that I have done every possible effort to read more, acquire more and discover more. The price of these books ranged between Rs 6 to Rs 20. And for a kid like me, buying new books remained a dream. I never liked to ask money from parents. Hence, I decided to find ways and means to get closer to my dream. And what all I did then, perhaps looks too embarrassing today, but deep in my heart I feel proud about my efforts. Here are some of them:

1. Making new friends and finding out if they have a nose for books.
2. Praise and flatter a guy who has a huge collection of comics.
3. Wait till late night or under hot sun outside the home of people who promised to give me comics after they return.
4. Visit a Raddi Wala Shop*( * A shack that sells old newspapers, bottles and other scrap) search among those newspapers & old magazines. If found any, I used to buy them at 1 Rupee each!! 70% of my collection consisted of books acquired through this medium. I remember the Uncle who ran that shop also used to address me as Uncle :)
5. Write someone's academic notes in a barter to get Amar Chitra Katha
6. Blackmail a classmate at school and get Tinkle in return.
7. Beautifully convince some of my rich friends to buy new comics for my selfish motive!
8. Chat aimlessly with a friend's sister with an intention to get Archie comics from her.
9. Support the guy who has maximum books if he gets into an argument during the game of cricket or any other sport.

One evening when we were playing, my friend Kartik approached towards me and whispered in my ear that he has got about 20 books. My mouth watered when he said that. He, however refused to reveal the source of books. Later I learned that the source of those books was a person called Nitesh who apparently has a huge collection of books. Suddenly a new mission had begun for me and it was easy for me to befriend Nitesh.

I visited Nitesh's rich house where he had kept hundreds of books in his private room upstairs, which looked like a library. I wondered how much money he would have spent to buy those books. Mine seemed to be a pauper's collection before him. Nevertheless, we began to exchange books.

One day I raised a proposal about starting a library. I conceived this based on my research in the neighborhood where I lived. There were many boys and girls in our who will be interested to read. Nitesh, being a true Gujarathi, gleefully agreed to start in his room. We started our project by pooling our books. Then we sorted out the books under different sub headings. We maintained a list and numbered each and every book. We took it very seriously. We finalized the rental charges of various books according to the number of pages and size. There was a late payment fine too! I also pitched the idea of reading books sitting in the library at an economical price of 50 paise. This concept worked beautifully for some Marvadi customers, who are known for their weird cost effective measures.

Gradually our Library gained its momentum. We became very popular among our other friends. Sometimes I'd go on my bicycle to distribute books door to door.It so happened that one day I had to deliver a story book to a pretty girl of our colony and little did I realize that this action of mine would frame and judiciously link me with that girl! And it paved way for gossips. Blame it on the age!

Very soon I was making a decent profit of 7 to 15 Rs a week. A portion of my income was spent on Paani Puri on Sundays after our usual game of cricket.

While I was involved with this, I didn't realize that my actions were making my other friends envious. Some of them who were very fond of me began to treat me differently. They perhaps didn't like my proximity with Nitesh. While I took utmost care not to get someone's hatred in our 'Business' and us. It took sometime for me to understand their thoughts and feelings. Remember Rajam from Malgudi days Swami and Friends? So much for the originality!

The matter became worse when Nitesh refused to take another friend who wanted to become a partner in our business by contributing his share of books. Well! the sparks had begun to fly all around. I was finding it difficult to manage my association with all my friends. I sometimes had to face the wrath from some of my best friends who said I had become conceited after the Library's success. I was terribly disappointed with the way mindsets changed. It looked as if some of them were trying to detach me and I looked like a sinister.

One late evening, I took an unanimous decision to part ways with our Library. Nitesh was visibly upset with my decision but later even he understood that, friends and mutual harmony is more important.

My life returned to normal and more exiting than before. I found myself sitting with group of friends and laughing away to glory. Those precious little moments which I missed during my basked glory came back to me slowly but wisely!

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