A dusted mind of books

I've been spending quite a lot of time reading 'The Rice Mother' by Rani Manicka. At this moment, the book is lying peacefully on my bed with a mere 8 pages to be devoured before I can call it a killing. Gosh...despite the circumstances, I'm really enjoying this read. So different. So real. So raw.

As I stopped to recognize my utilization of passing moments in drugged sleep and reading, my mind was lurched backward 10 years ago, to visions of me, so clear and crisp that I can almost smell it. Back to the days of a 9 year old, going on 10...

I was in Std. 5, a year ahead of the rest, having written Common Entrance early. I remember privately meeting with some teachers about the prospect of starting a school library. The idea was all well and honorable, except for the infamous problem of space. I don't know exactly how it happened, but before I knew it, in a whirlwind of passing days, there I was sitting on a ducted tapped box full of books, passing cloth over what seemed like inches of dust...steering at what became, the beginning of Grant School's first library.

It was nothing more than a corridor behind the school stage and the wall ...leading to the Principal's office. A mere 5 feet wide ...with one long shelf of books and myself sitting, there wasn't an inch left for another person to dare walk by. I was graced with a window which offered this eerie feel to the dusty hot place, as streaks of the midday sun shone into the shelves leaving behind it, a pathway through the air where the raising dust can clearly be seen.

I remember more boxes of books coming in... 2 in fact. My excitement beyond anything I could ctrl at that time. I sat for an entire day in that cramped space sorting them out and logging them. Days went by and I have a vivid vision of myself sitting on the floor reading this book about how 'brail' was first created...until one fine day I was finished.

By the time we opened our library, I had recruited 2 friends of mine to help with the lending and borrowing...and there I spent much of my last few days in school. It's amazing I never really entertained this memory until this moment. I didn’t remember even when I became a Librarian in SJC...neither when I spent countless hrs on Campus huddled in the Library.......Maybe I had forgotten…who knows. But its so real now. Such a fond memory that I now grasp unto it so tightly in an attempt to smother the pain ...of...now.