Dateline Delhi

New Delhi. 11 November: India’s capital city witnessed a historic evening on 11th November 2025 when Russian Writer Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Great-Great Grandson Alexei Dostoevsky visited it and gave a detailed lecture about the history of Dostoevsky Family. Alexei is the first member of Dostoevsky lineage to ever set foot in India. I visited the venue “Russian Cultural Centre” about half an hour before the start of the lecture. The place is a Brezhnev era construction, and I remember I used to visit it during my college days to watch Russian Cinema. Just before the Start of the lecture I got the chance to meet Alexei Dimitrievich Dostoevsky. He was a very warm and cordial gentleman and there was an ease in his manners that dissolved all formality. It felt like as if kindness and depth of his ancestor’s world have found a living expression in him. I took an autograph of him and when I asked for a photograph he happily agreed for it too. ...

New Delhi. 28 October: It was a fine October evening when I met my favourite author William Dalrymple in Delhi.  It was 15th of October, and William was in the city, after a long tour across the United Kingdom related to the promotion of his latest book “The Golden Road”, which is a saga of ancient India’s impact over the world. In it, discussing about many gifts of Ancient India to the world, Dalrymple argues that there was no silk route available in ancient times, and It were the ports of Ancient India that enabled the commerce between Ancient Rome and Ancient China. Dalrymple suggests that idea of Silk Road is a modern invention, and we find no mention of this word “Silk Road” in ancient or medieval records.  The book was originally released on 05th of September in UK and India. I was lucky to grab its signed Indian edition at Bahrisons Bookshop at Khan Market on 05th September itself...

  New Delhi. 02 January: For an Indian Student of Mass Communication, “The Art and Print Production” by Prof. NN Sarkar is considered a gold standard, particularly for those interested in Print Media. I studied this book thoroughly in my school days, much before entering the college. This book is so much sought after that its first edition copies are a rare find. In our college days, our college library had provided us with the xerox copies of this book, and I was the only person in my whole batch to own it’s rare First Edition Copy in my possession.  Well this NN Sarkar book is very interesting and talks in detail about the various aspects related to page setting, font selection, printing technologies, types of papers etcetera etcetera; But for the first time in my life it introduced me to the Grammage of  Paper, or the Paper-Weight. The “Grams Per Square Metre (GSM)” is a unit that defines the thickness of the printed paper. It is defined in numbers, the lower the ...

  Pragyaan on Moon New Delhi. 07 September: After playing in the open sun for long hours, little “Pragyan” is exhausted now, and is now going to sleep at his maternal home, the home - the courtyard of his “Moon” Uncle. As if scripted in the Jules Verne’s story and it’s film adaptation, the first Indian Traveller on Moon - “Rover Pragyan” is going to sleep comfortably under a warm blanket for the long lunar night.  Though I was in no mood to pen a piece, but it is such a historic moment that, I was compelled to author this brief write up. There is a popular lullaby in India “Chanda-Mama door ke” meaning “Uncle Moon sitting far away”. Every kid who is raised during past half century or so in India, knows this song by heart, and it goes like this “Uncle Moon who lives far away, is cooking doughnuts for the little baby. Uncle moon eats in the plate and the little baby eats in the small bowl”… So Moon is so much personal, like a relative in the Indian psyche. There is also a story ...

New Delhi. 17 August: Book Collectors are a very persistent lot. They can wait for decades to get just one book. A single copy of an out-of-print, thus rare book. I myself have waited for nearly two decades to get “Peter the Great” written by Alexei Tolstoy. Buratino. (c) pphbooks.net It was the winter of 2001 when I was first introduced to Alexei Tolstoy. I was a kid and we were visiting Allahabad, when I purchased “The Golden Key, or the adventures of Buratino”, a Russian equivalent of Pinocchio. The copy I got was in Hindi, and was a Soviet Print, published from Moscow. Later in 2004, I received another Hindi translation of A. Tolstoy’s “Engineer Garin’s Death Ray”, from “People’s Publishing House (PPH) Delhi. It was translated as “चार दिन की चाँदनी” (Chaar Din Ki Garin's Ray. (c) biblio.com Chandni, Four Days of Moonlight). It was a sci-fi fiction about Engineer Garin, who had discovered Laser Light. A year later in 2005, I purchased four volumes (out of six) of A.Tolstoy’ Col...

  Glue, Paper and Thread (c) Tom Murphy VII, Commons. New Delhi. 12 July: For a hobbyist Book binder, arranging essential raw materials is a Herculean task. If the books are old then one has to use material that can support book for many upcoming decades, in other words material should be of Archival-Quality. I believe, a book is composed of not just letters and ideas, but every book is a finished product comprising of Cloth, Paper, Thread and glue (of course book boards). Repairing a book is a task in itself because you want to retain the original shape of the book, and for that matter want to deploy the same materials and methods that were used by the original publisher / printing press. These all are Glue (c) Amy M Lavine, Commons People often ask what kind of glue available in India is archival in nature. Well I have only used Fevicol MR (PVA) till date, which has good flexibility, has archival properties, provides long term support to the spine of the book. But it has one big ...

JNU Rains. pallav.journo Wikimedia Commons. Can I ask the Rains, to pour over the, Courtyard of my beloved, To speak to her of my heart, To inform her of my restless soul, The same rains which- are pouring over me, She is also at this moment- praising the calmness of them, Smiling at the lush greenery  Can I ask you, the wind, To gently blow near my beloved, To spread the earthy-  smell of my garden, in the courtyard of my beloved O dear seasonal birds, For centuries I have not seen her, I am bound by my discipline, my oath, But you are so free, Do tell her of me. - Pallav 30/06/2022.

New Delhi. 30 June: I grew up in a household with a home-library. Our library is three generations old, and maybe the first book was added to it in the mid 1950’s. As per my knowledge, the oldest book that we own is a “Moby Dick” published from London in 1923. (c)Jean-Pol GRANDMONT,  Wikimedia Commons S o I inculcated the habit of “Book Preservation” since early childhood. Many techniques were learnt and matured over time. But at that age also, I realised that the traditional binder shop at the corner of the street was not up to the job. The traditional binders used to put three holes in the book, put a single knot stitching through it and put some cardboard, colourful paper and red coloured buckram (as a spine liner) over it, and the work was done. A great book was spoiled forever. S o I decided to take matters into my own hands. I mastered  traditional book binding, then I moved on to professional book binding, so that I could restore the books to their original form. W ith...

New Delhi. 29 June: Two great shows by BBC. "BEECHAM HOUSE" and "TABOO"(2017). Both were centred around East India Company.  Under the Auspices of the Sovereign and Senate of England. Image Courtesy: Commons. The Honourable East India Company (EICo) as it was officially called was a trading company started by Merchants of London in 1600 AD. Though it was initially started solely as a company to deal in the exotic goods of the orient; It soon evolved into a Parallel Government holding vast swathes of Geography and controlling own Armies on a near global scale. We can also see the EICo as an extension or Predecessor to the British Empire. Dara Shikoh Library. Image Courtesy : Dr. William Dalrymple. Beecham House, directed by our very own Gurinder Chaddha is the story of an 18th century EICo officer named John Beecham. Mr. Beecham got disillusioned with the life of Company rule and moved to Mughal Delhi to start a business. Full of French Mercenaries, Decline of Mughal...