Delhiwale: Sealed with a love

Let us sing in praise of inscriptions. The ones encountered on the opening pages of used books, scrawled by hands perhaps long dead. Indeed, in Delhi’s legendary Sunday Book Bazar, secondhand books on sale often bear such personalised words—sometimes written by the book’s owner, sometimes as dedications jotted by the person gifting the book to a friend or relative. Reading these lines, composed in confidence by a person unknown to us, spawns multiple feelings. Is the person who wrote them still alive? What circumstances made this book homeless? Here are some of the many inscriptions encountered over the years at Sunday Book Bazar. No single jotting tells a complete story, but jointly they create an encyclopaedia of loves, lives, and commemorations.

“In memory of my uncle James Henry, my father’s brother. Killed in action at Sawnanghut, 6/6/1916. RFA, 66th Bgde, 13th Div, p 489” — On the book ‘The Neglected War, Mesopotamia 1914-1918’

PS: The aforementioned page, numbered 489, has a line listing 66th Brigade R.F.A., marked in blue pen with “Uncle Henry.”

“24/12/66, To the man I love, you are the brightest and the dumbest, the weirdest and the most normal, read it… please. Not because you need to learn but because it contains a thought worth giving a thought to.” — On ‘211 Things a Bright Boy Can Do’

“To Pete, Happy Birthday + happy reading, should keep you going till you’re 21. Helen + Richard” — On ‘Bleak House’

“To Jane, Thank you for listening when I speak, love, Julie” — On ‘The Well of Loneliness’

PS: This book was among the earliest novels on lesbian love, and the inscribed names Jane and Julie (see photo) suggest a bond between the two.

“I feel a dead language now that I don’t speak to you anymore… you must be for it and not against… for ever yours, Nana, 18/3/55”— On ‘Ulysses’

“To Mum, Happy Birthday on your 90th , from Paul & Jacque” — On ‘Cat Stories’

“Annie Bayman—read on the ‘Ariel,’ Mathew’s narrow boat, summer of 2012, drinking coffee, reading, papers—talking food & wine, thank you, Mathew” — On ‘Bring up the Bodies’

“This book belongs to Rameshwar Nath Sharma, Student of B.A. (Hons), IInd yr, Hindu College, Delhi-8” — On ‘T. S. Eliot’s Selected Poems’

PS: Also written this on the bottom of the same page: “Look up and see the owner’s name, don’t steal the book for fear and shame. 25 August 1955”