According to a quote by Edmund Wilson "No two persons ever read the same book." This is indeed true because two different persons can read the same book and derive two different take home messages. But any book, good or bad, never fails to kindle the thinking process in the reader’s mind which is what the main purpose of education is.
Yesterday, “Newspaper House” one of my favourite haunts of the yesteryears, turned fifty although Lokkur Raja Rao, the grand – old - man, who started it and who would undoubtedly have loved to see the day, was not there to celebrate the event.
While writing about my love and fascination for books, I had once written about how along with Geetha Book in K. R. Circle, Newspaper House, just a stone’s throw away at the very edge of Lansdowne Building and at the former location of the famous Elgin Fountain, had not only served me as a fountain of knowledge but also as a source of much solace, comfort and joy. With its endearing owner never even once showing any resentment or displeasure at my prolonged stays there whenever I happened to visit his shop which used to be about once a week as it was for many years my favourite weekend destination.
On the contrary, having quickly sensed my unusual love for books, Raja Rao used to encourage me to sit on the solitary stool in his small shop or if it happened to be already occupied by a customer, sometimes on a crate of books in the corner and browse to my heart’s content. And whenever I happened to pick up more books than I had money to pay for, which invariably used to be the rule rather than the exception, he would always encourage me to take them all saying that I could pay for them at my convenience if not at my next visit.
Not only this, if my stay at his shop seemed a little too long and my appearance a little too tired for his comfort, he would, with the unusual benevolence he perpetually possessed, order a glass of chilled Badam Milk for me from the adjoining Phalamrutha Juice Centre. This used to be the proverbial icing on the cake for me, then a schoolboy away from home and while cheering me up no end it would promptly put a spring into my step as I strode home, happily lugging my load of books.
According to an article on Newspaper House written in Star of Mysore of 20th June 1995 by R. S. Krishnaswamy, the son of the former cricket commentator R. K. Pattabhi (brother of R. K. Narayan and R. K. Laxman), although the present shop was started in its present location only in the year 1960, Raja Rao while he was still working as a school teacher, actually got into the business of selling news - papers and periodicals way back in the year 1930 when he joined his father Ramachandra Rao, who was a newspaper vendor.
It is interesting to note that Raja Rao’s grandfather Lokkur Jaya Rao too was in the newspaper business which he was operating from Nanjangud right from the late 1800s. This fact makes the family business more than a century-old and my friends Sridhar and Krishna, the two sons of Raja Rao, who run the show now, thus become the fourth generation owners of the trade, which speaks of some perseverance!
Raja Rao’s father had his newspaper shop called the General Agency near the Jagan Mohan Palace, which he closed down in financial distress when a ship carrying a large consignment of books for his shop from England sank on the high seas. It appears he incurred heavy losses as his goods were not insured and he was consequently forced to retreat to his ancestral village of Lokkur in Nanjangud Taluk and take up farming.
That was the time when his young son Raja Rao, then a primary school teacher, decided to step in and revive the ancestral business. He seems to have done it with some degree of success going by the fact that he was quickly able to open three other outlets on the railway platforms in Nanjangud, Hassan and Tumkur which he used to manage with the help of his relatives.
An amused Raja Rao used to recall that The Hindu, which is famed as the first newspaper to have its own chartered transport aircraft in the sixties, used to sell just five copies a day in the entire city of Mysore when he first started his agency in 1930! He used to feel proud that many stalwarts like Sir Mirza Ismail and literary giants like D. V. Gundappa, A. N. Moorthy Rao, Gopalkrishna Adiga and U. R. Ananthamurthy used to patronise his shop regularly.
He once introduced me as “the boy with the greatest love for books” to R. K. Narayan, who used to visit his shop regularly even till just a few years before his death. The famed writer, who strangely used to wear his favourite grey sleeveless sweater, in both rain and shine alike, used to always tell both Raja Rao and me to watch what I was reading!
I must admit here that very often while I did not take his advice too seriously, I invariably found the fatherly Raja Rao implementing it both in letter and spirit and sometimes refusing to hand me a book that looked tempting and attractive! Although he never sold any ‘bad’ books in his shop, he was wary of what a youngster should read and would discourage me from reading any fiction other than what had been written by A. J. Cronin, whom he respected much. In retrospect, after having read all of Cronin’s books many times over, I cannot agree with him more. Perhaps in support of what he thought of books and reading, he had put up a small plaque in his shop which said: "Do not read good books. Life is too short. Read only the best."
Yesterday evening, nearly forty - five years after I first started going there, I visited the shop with my wife to greet the family members who had gathered there to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the shop. We could for the first time meet late Raja Rao’s wife Smt. Tara Bai, who too seemed to have come to the shop after many years. She was discussing with her sons the earlier layout of the place and the changes they had subsequently made.
As I accepted my copy of the Bhagavad Gita they were giving as a gift to all the visitors, it was a sentimental moment for me as I had gone back to the roots of my love for books.
While talking of books and the joys of the reading habit a couple of days ago, my mother, who too is a great lover of books, showed me a quote by Austin Phelps in a twenty – two - year old copy of the Reader’s Digest which she was re - reading. It said: “Wear the old coat and buy the new book”. I think I will do just that for this winter too.
