Musing dolefully
inside of your head
you might be forgiven
for sometimes thinking
that reading is dead
That books are breathing their last
That the world has given up
the reading habit and is sitting,
bolstered with many pillows instead
watching sitcoms in its bed
And as for the new generation
why it’s all digital
and things are changing so fast
that there is no place for books
at all!

However, if you care to look
The written word has survived
much in the past and the book
through its many avatars
has always managed to last
We’ve come a long way really
since the early mnemonic symbols
and pictographs. Past etching on stone
Past wooden, clay or wax tablets
All the way past to the discovery
of the alphabet. Past the use of
the calamus, the brush and the stylus.
Past books written on dried palm leaves
and on silk and amatyl.

Once upon a time
the book was a continuous roll
in fact a papyrus scroll
Ten, twenty or even forty meters long
when held out to be read
like the Egyptian Book of The Dead
And then the book became a fan
Folded in concertina style
And then at last it went codex.
Became a compilation of sheets
and the world marveled
at the miracle of going straight
to the page you wanted
Instead of having a few good men
hold it aloft as you walked across
reading it from end to end.

And if you think reading is declining
Then do look again
at all those folks with books
on their faces and bellies
on beach chairs reclining
In the good old days, you know,
monks locked up inside
distant mountain monasteries
with nothing else to do read
and perhaps a king or two.
And that was that for readership all told
and all that was known of the writerly tribe
Was the pharaoh or king’s official scribe.

Ever since The Guttenberg Bible in 1455
The book is ever more kicking and alive
It’s been marching onward and on
Into more and more and more
More countries, more languages,
More places, more races
Into bookstores and bookchains
Into stations, airports, grocery store
And cyberspaces
No sirree, the book ain’t vegetating
It’s out there and proliferating
And I really, really don’t say this in mirth
Even as you read this, half a dozen
new genres may have taken birth
Magical Tweeny Lit is oh so yesterday
Anyone for some Frenemy Fantasy Fiction
today?

© Manjul Bajaj