The past holiday season had me caught up in costume dramas. I’ve always had a weakness for watching films and TV series set in the 19th century. This time, it was frenzy. It all started with a chance viewing of the miniseries, North and South based on Elizabeth Gaskell’s social novel set in Milton, England of the 1850s.

The setting of the industrial northern city of Milton with its cotton mills, the work ethic of the people in this smoky town, the way people trade, the ups and downs of business and fortunes, social mores and customs, the viewpoints and struggles of the workers (hands) and the masters (mill owners), the unlikely friendship of two young women, and the coming together of an improbable couple make for riveting viewing.

​The costumes, the settings, and the language – so different from what we read and speak today – endear you to the characters even more. I got so much into the mood that I downloaded a copy of the novel on my recently acquired Kindle. There are quite a few differences in the TV adaptation from the original novel – especially in keeping with gender sensitivity and other such subtleties of today. But I daresay the book was extremely slow reading. For the first time perhaps, I found the TV adaptation better!

I then went on to watch this series called The Paradise. The series is an adaptation of Émile Zola's novel Au Bonheur des Dames (The Ladies' Delight or The Ladies' Paradise), published in 1883. The plot revolves around a departmental store and in particular the goings on in the ladies section of the store. The story explores the beginnings of marketing, the first tentative steps toward advertising, the idea of credit, the consolidation of many businesses under one roof, the incentive system for employees, and underlying all this, the social customs during that time. For instance, if a lady member of the staff married, she had to give up her position in the store – the same did not apply to the men in the staff.

This too was a gripping series and made me think about the times gone by and how these concepts have evolved over time. The series looks at ideas such as dedication to one’s work, friendship, honesty, and ethical practices in business realistically and portrays the fact that all these are not always as black and white as they may appear. The language in this series is more contemporary – I have not yet compared it to the original work.

I then watched the all-time favorites – the Pride and Prejudice series made by the BBC in 1995 and Jane Eyre. The language and the settings were uplifting to say the least. Sometimes, watching series or movies like these can be a great introduction to the classical novels.
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All in all, wholesome entertainment to ring in the new year. Happy new year, dear reader. Here’s wishing you a great ride in 2016. 

I continue a few thoughts here from my last post where I talked about how my generation moved from handwriting to typewriting to the world of word processors and beyond.

I can’t help but think it ironic that in the time when we wrote letters and some of us perhaps wrote diaries, there really was so much to write. And we actually wrote! I’m not sure how things run in schools and colleges these days, but being from the Humanities stream, I remember writing reference notes for hours sitting in the college library. I do not remember what exactly I wrote in those 3-hour long exams – but I know my answer sheet booklet was full. Now, I doubt I can write one paragraph without making a mistake. What’s worse, I’m sure I will miss the keyboard after I’ve jotted the first sentence.  

I did not spend much time in the typewriting phase – just that bit that was necessary to write (type) for the typewriting exam. I went on to build my career in technical writing. That involves a whole lot of word processors and other content writing and content management software. But that I do for a living. My letter writing has died down completely. The last diary I maintained was perhaps 15 years back. I’m still in touch with friends and family the world over, but that communication too has graduated from snail mail, to email, to IM (Instant Messaging), to poking, to messaging on WhatsApp.

Isn’t it strange that we have tools that help us write quickly, easily and more accurately (thanks to Spell check and Grammar check) but our abilities to actually write have diminished significantly? We rely on all sorts of short forms and emoticons. Right from GM, LOL, FYI, BRB, and BFN to a host of emoticons, we seem to be challenged when it comes to expressing ourselves using words, sentences, paragraphs. Those absolutely adorable emoticons/emojis are so handy, why not use them and appear peppy? Appear young and happening?

It took us thousands of years to develop a language and write and express in it, write remarkable prose and poetry in it, and now all we can do is send grins and smileys? Are we moving at a rapid pace towards the Stone Age? Is this what is meant when people say that all things are cyclical? I mean what’s the difference between a Stone Age drawing in a cave and our emoticons (except that ours are on smart phones and other devices)? It does not seem very smart to me to be losing track and sense of language like this.

BRB with a new post soon. BFN :)

There’s a Landmark Bookstore close to home. Over the last few months, the book section has been vanishing. A year back, half the store space was dedicated to books, and the other half to toys and stationery. The choice of books wasn’t fantastic, but it wasn’t miserable either. When I visited a few weeks back, the book section had shrunk to a few measly bookcases. Around 80% of the store has been taken over by toys, electronics, and stationery.

A decade or so back Crossword Bookstore used to be a crowded place. Now, it’s often empty. It’s the place where a few readers come to browse, or people kill time before their movie starts. One of Pune’s oldest bookstores, Manneys, shut down in 2012 after more than fifty years of selling books. Borders, one of the largest chain bookstores in the US, shut down in 2009.

All this is just part of the mass migration to buying books online. While I do miss the smell of printed pages in bookstores, and the joy of actually browsing in real time, it’s not all a bad thing. Paperbacks sold online are cheaper. Ebooks are far cheaper. Writers can earn better royalties. You can store thousands of books on your reading device, which saves space. You don’t need to weep looking at your books sitting in cardboard boxes, while you try to decide which bookcase to buy.

Some say that people don’t read anymore. These people must visit the Strand Book Fair that takes place at the Sunderbai Hall, Churchgate, Mumbai, every year. It’s the Mecca for booklovers. A hall the size of a football field is filled with books from every corner of the earth, on every subject under the sun including the sun itself. There are fantastic discounts, and it’s impossible to see the entire place in one day (which is why it goes on for ten days).

The nature of buying and selling books is changing. But hopefully reading, as a habit, will live on for some time.