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| Online books | | | Vijay Garg | 3/30/2022 11:44:43 PM |
| Earlier there used to be ten or twelve bookshelf in that small market. Now there is only one bookseller left - Lallu. This is his personal business. There is also a stationery box attached to it. Ranjan Pen’s old board is still hanging there. The pen has also changed many forms. In the beginning, he used to write with ‘dunk’. The desk had round grooves for ink. Dunk changed his form and became a pen.
Often these pens used to spoil the trousers during the summer days. Dotpen got rid of this problem. That is, the refill pen. Separately, the hassle of ink ended. These days stopper pens come in many brands. Now the nature of the market has changed. There used to be small slums, but now there are concrete shops. But even now he remains the bookseller and Ranjan Pen wala.
It is a matter of fact that the map of other shops has changed. Paanwale’s shop has taken the form of a mobile showroom. Computers and photocopier machines have started appearing in other shops. Those who spent their youth in selling paan and bidis, are now selling mobiles in their old age. But the board with Ranjan pen still remains in the stationery shop. Similarly Lallu is selling text book and magazine. He hasn’t changed with the times. However, nowadays magazine and book purchasers can be counted on their fingers. In such a situation, the idea comes that how would he make his living?
I asked him the same question one day. At that time a famous magazine had reached his shop. I usually go to his place only after the 5th of every month. Paid the price of that magazine, then he laughed and said - Babuji, you are my old customer, so from now on I am giving you a discount of five percent.
Cause I think you are the only person in this city who buys literary books. The rest are people who carry magazines full of eroticism.
Actually, my shop is running because of those magazines. Can’t say how long it will last. Today everything is available on the Internet.… Surprise! But the point is right. One of my friends often says on seeing the board of Ranjan Pen in the adjacent shop that I have forgotten to write. I can just move my fingers on the mobile…. And it is also surprising to sell ink pens, which are not in trend today.
The pen man has completed fifty years in this business. Earlier his father used to sell, now the son is the bearer of that tradition. Sometimes an elderly person is seen buying pens from his shop. Ink pens deserve to be kept in a showcase. Similarly, the bookseller has a pile of old books, whose pages have turned pale yellow.
But in what tune is he running the shop, I don’t know? Sometimes I also feel that I unnecessarily bleed fifty rupees every month. I can read magazines ‘online’ rather than in printed form. But I find it more relaxing to read in print, ie being ‘offline’.
Actually, being ‘online’ can neither laugh with laughter nor can weep by tearing the book. Whereas ‘offline’ has vibrancy.
Each other friends. are younger in age. He has changed the map of the room given at his work place. Waste shelves have been renovated and decorated with books of various subjects. A small library has been built. Somewhere there are physics books, some chemistry, some maths.
It is said that I buy books ‘online’. Today, online coaching institutes and business companies have looted a lot of goods. The one who caught the changing times, he is rich, otherwise both the book seller and Ranjan Pen Wala say that they are running the shop just to pass the time. Those selling tea and paan and grocery have changed their business with the passage of time. They are happy. Same is the situation in schools and colleges.
Classes which were once buzzing with students, now only a few students are seen there. The question arises that what is the need of master and professor at such a time? What is the purpose of school-college? A gold-silver fly sitting in the market is seen killing. One day when I asked him the reason, he said chirpingly, the whole business is going on ‘online’ sir! We come here to spend time.
Strangely, instead of the visible, a parallel virtual world has now spread around us, and we still frown at it. |
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