S.A.Govindraju, a 77 year old energetic gentleman with a very pleasing personality welcomed me with a wide smile on his face to his unique book stall “THE RARE BOOKS”. The very name of the stall had attracted me at the first sight. After glancing over a few books, I became very curious to know how he managed... to get these books and from where? Therefore I picked a conversation with him, and asked him about the same, without any hesitation and grumpiness that one holds as he gets aged, this person was kind enough to take time to answer my questions. With great delight he told me that, he has been collecting these books for over 45 years and has over 2000 and more books that are exceptional and uncommon. He had great literary works of Indian as well as the foreign writers who created a revolution during those periods. He also has special collection of work by different freedom fighters from different parts of the world such as Kenneth Kaunda the Zambian leader, Nelson Mandela and a lot more who are hardly known to the people these days. His favourite among his collection is the Punch magazine which he adores a lot for the excellent cartoons sketched by great artists of Europe during 1840’s and so on. All these books were gifted to him by his father asking him to first “read and then preserve”. Preserve? , then why is he selling them? , was my next question, for which he answered in a very concerned tone “ I am getting older and weaker day by day, and whatever I have preserved , I want it to go to the right hands, who can understand the worth of the valuable piece of literature”, he also said that he was largely disappointed with the current generation of writers and readers as they have no quality in writing as well as reading, which is pushing the literature of the country to a very soiled state. Govindraju attempts to preserve what he can of the literary culture that is fast in decline. He also gave me a personal invitation to visit Rare Books, which is at R.A. Puram , Chennai-28 , to see much more of his massive unsurpassed collection of books.
Sunday, 5 February 2012
RARE BOOKS
S.A.Govindraju, a 77 year old energetic gentleman with a very pleasing personality welcomed me with a wide smile on his face to his unique book stall “THE RARE BOOKS”. The very name of the stall had attracted me at the first sight. After glancing over a few books, I became very curious to know how he managed... to get these books and from where? Therefore I picked a conversation with him, and asked him about the same, without any hesitation and grumpiness that one holds as he gets aged, this person was kind enough to take time to answer my questions. With great delight he told me that, he has been collecting these books for over 45 years and has over 2000 and more books that are exceptional and uncommon. He had great literary works of Indian as well as the foreign writers who created a revolution during those periods. He also has special collection of work by different freedom fighters from different parts of the world such as Kenneth Kaunda the Zambian leader, Nelson Mandela and a lot more who are hardly known to the people these days. His favourite among his collection is the Punch magazine which he adores a lot for the excellent cartoons sketched by great artists of Europe during 1840’s and so on. All these books were gifted to him by his father asking him to first “read and then preserve”. Preserve? , then why is he selling them? , was my next question, for which he answered in a very concerned tone “ I am getting older and weaker day by day, and whatever I have preserved , I want it to go to the right hands, who can understand the worth of the valuable piece of literature”, he also said that he was largely disappointed with the current generation of writers and readers as they have no quality in writing as well as reading, which is pushing the literature of the country to a very soiled state. Govindraju attempts to preserve what he can of the literary culture that is fast in decline. He also gave me a personal invitation to visit Rare Books, which is at R.A. Puram , Chennai-28 , to see much more of his massive unsurpassed collection of books.
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