Underlining

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

I never prefer old books although they are available on the roadside pavements in big cities plentifully and at throw away prices. A brand new book, press fresh excites me like an oven fresh chicken leg. Holding such a book in my hand gives me sensuous joy. A new book has a smell like the scent of the earth on a monsoon breaking shower at dawn. Its touch enlivens me like a flower shivering under the humming bee. My eyes feast on the tome as though I am savouring grace. No, no exaggeration. Any new book thrills me even today. I place it against my heart and feel my beats, keeping time on the timeless Intellectual possibilities. When I start reading I begin from the first letter. If the book is dull, uninspiring and pedantic I don't throw it away. At least an author has spent countless hours to write it, has poured his/her convictions, however, mistaken and ill-conceived on midnight pages. The book may not be chewable or digestible yet it is a product of a mind however dull or stubborn. I respect an author's ego, if not his egoistic outpourings; I turn the pages with languorous resignation and keep it aside. If a book catches my fancy I enter the writer's mind and try to reconstruct it in my mind. But when I am with Shakespeare or Vyasa or Tolstoy I weigh each word, each phrase on the balance of Vasuki's hood.

I never put any mark or even a dot on a book lest I interfere or intrude upon a great mind's aesthetic architecture. I read, re-read a good book and try to gauge the expanse of a mind, the vision of a  genius. If the book withstands my probing questions and counter narratives, I touch my forehead with the book and reverentially place the book on the shelf. I never underline any sentence or stanza. Nor put lines on the margin. Except my signature on the title page I never put any mark anywhere. In fact, I never hold a pen/pencil while reading a book, nor do I take notes.

 

One day my Professor (BKT), my research supervisor saw some of the books on my study table and with a smirk said: These books are for show or what? Have you read these books? There is not a single line anywhere? I was not embarrassed. I said,  when I read a book I never underline any passage. If there are purple patches, I remember.  I trust my memory. BKT said, that's fine,  you do not want to disfigure a book but when you do research these marked passages come handy.  And I know you never take notes... I didn't argue. I said, I will underline things hereafter. BKT was a very perceptive intellectual but very meticulous, orderly and disciplined. When my thesis was submitted he warned me: Since you have not quoted and challenged any critic, the evaluators may think you have not read any secondary source materials. But the foreign scholars are hopefully, objective. They will certainly appreciate originality. I mused Amen.

Thereafter I made it a point to sit with a pen whenever I began reading a book. And also underlined certain portions which appealed to me or struck me as original. This habit continued till my 60th year after which I made this habit occasional. I marked only those portions which I may refer to in future. Today  I turned the pages of Dostoevsky's Notes From The Underground and was at a passage which I had underlined, God knows when. The lines are,

"And what, pray, does civilization soften in us? All civilization does, is to develop in man the many sidedness of his sensations, and nothing absolutely nothing more. And through the development  of his many sidedness man, for all we know, may reach the stage when he will find pleasure in bloodshed."(sec vii)

To be honest I was surprised at the prophetic grandeur of the sentence. But I was also disturbed at the assertion that civilization has not taught us to soften in us the aggressive rebelliousness which causes bloodshed. Dostoevsky agrees that civilization opens up the many sidedness of the human beings. All emotions, passions, intellectual pursuits find a free atmosphere to be at full play. But will the post Enlightenment thinkers agree with him? Does civilization open up all sides - and here too scholars do not see eye to eye on many contours. If liberalism, democracy, globalization and secularism are true civilizational values why do thinkers like Justine  E. Smith (Irrationality) challenge Pinker and others? Bill Gates may accept the professed values of civilization but Trump does not - why? Xi Jinping does not believe in any nuances of civilization, except global domination. The true successor of Mao Zedong believes in a  profession of lies, deceit and hypocrisy, for  XI's or the CPC's brand of political faith has brought the 2020 world to the brink of disaster. What are the many sides which civilization opens up? Fellow feeling, togetherness, faith in the rule of law or bigotry and Jihad, honour killing or something else like - Every death diminishes me?   There is no unanimity in anything. What Nial Ferguson calls Civilization Harari may not accept and what Harari accepts as Civilization Sashi Tharoor may not concur in. How many sides do the humans have? Perhaps legion. But man has always enjoyed the Romance of Bloodshed. Staking his mortality he wills immortality by his sword. Dostoevsky perhaps saw more of gore than the well rounded human spirit making the world a concord of all tunes. And in the now world we see the truth of Dostoevsky's prophetic musings.

 

I was delighted that I had underlined something which is perceptually universal. I could see that line, faded and smudged, as I ran through the book. Yes, underlining is good although one part of my spirit still believes that a book's appeal should be virginal. But I will make the compromise, I will underline, sideline with coloured pencils and make the pages more colourful than those could be.