Written by a Hand
In search of printed ephemera from that brief dialogue between Bengali and American poetry that brought us the Hungry Generation and the Blue Hand Beats, I surrender myself to the bibliophilic flow of College Street, Calcutta, still the largest second hand literature market in the world. The Presidency University is approaching its double centenary and a colony of books surrounds it: publishers’ offices in the upper storeys of buildings that seem forever unfinished, strung together by a spaghetti of live wires, the warrens of Chuckerverty & Chatterjee, Dasgupta & Co, and the Bani Library beneath — treasure houses, whatever your language.
Buffeted downstream through the profusion of stalls that shanty the pavement, the hawkers of all manner of printed materials self-imprisoned by their own wares, I browse in the eddies and then am carried away again. The mercantile buzz is intense, as if meaning can be transmitted through friction. As I progress, my needs precede me, and temptations are proffered, from one Mr Biswas a small stack of poetry journals in English, publications, bundled together by slip-knotted twine.
In among them is an issue of Shearsman I already possess but acquire anyway, curious as to what hands it might have passed through, hoping for distinguishing marks to trace its journey here, marginal notes perhaps or a plate ex libris. I retreat to the Indian Coffee House —that temple of learning and its avoidance located just off the main drag on Bankim Chatterjee Street, its stairway undecorated in a century and encrusted with layers of hand-scraped pastings — only to greet a former self in the doorway.
Taking a corner table in the lower deck, rows of propellers hung from ancient pipework churning the air, we make our usual order from the waiter, his cock-comb turban the signifier of a proud cooperative worker in the last city in the world that takes Marxism seriously: two cups of hot coffee, a plate of vegetable cutlets with chatri sauce to share. The chamber is a hive of humming cut with shafts of honeyed sunlight. Many books have been written here, more talked about being written.
My former self is busy with his note book, writing about me I shouldn’t wonder. I take the copy of Shearman from its newspaper wrapper, momentarily distracted by an advertisement for a cure for impotence, then flick its pages under my nose, smell being first among senses. This magazine has known the warmth of coffee, I can tell from the patterning of rings on the cover. Pages inside have their corners turned over in remembrance. The contents section is decorated with stars. And on the title page, ‘Tony Frazer’ is scratched in blue-black ink, written by a hand that might just have been his own.
In search of printed ephemera from that brief dialogue between Bengali and American poetry that brought us the Hungry Generation and the Blue Hand Beats, I surrender myself to the bibliophilic flow of College Street, Calcutta, still the largest second hand literature market in the world. The Presidency University is approaching its double centenary and a colony of books surrounds it: publishers’ offices in the upper storeys of buildings that seem forever unfinished, strung together by a spaghetti of live wires, the warrens of Chuckerverty & Chatterjee, Dasgupta & Co, and the Bani Library beneath — treasure houses, whatever your language.
Buffeted downstream through the profusion of stalls that shanty the pavement, the hawkers of all manner of printed materials self-imprisoned by their own wares, I browse in the eddies and then am carried away again. The mercantile buzz is intense, as if meaning can be transmitted through friction. As I progress, my needs precede me, and temptations are proffered, from one Mr Biswas a small stack of poetry journals in English, publications, bundled together by slip-knotted twine.
In among them is an issue of Shearsman I already possess but acquire anyway, curious as to what hands it might have passed through, hoping for distinguishing marks to trace its journey here, marginal notes perhaps or a plate ex libris. I retreat to the Indian Coffee House —that temple of learning and its avoidance located just off the main drag on Bankim Chatterjee Street, its stairway undecorated in a century and encrusted with layers of hand-scraped pastings — only to greet a former self in the doorway.
Taking a corner table in the lower deck, rows of propellers hung from ancient pipework churning the air, we make our usual order from the waiter, his cock-comb turban the signifier of a proud cooperative worker in the last city in the world that takes Marxism seriously: two cups of hot coffee, a plate of vegetable cutlets with chatri sauce to share. The chamber is a hive of humming cut with shafts of honeyed sunlight. Many books have been written here, more talked about being written.
My former self is busy with his note book, writing about me I shouldn’t wonder. I take the copy of Shearman from its newspaper wrapper, momentarily distracted by an advertisement for a cure for impotence, then flick its pages under my nose, smell being first among senses. This magazine has known the warmth of coffee, I can tell from the patterning of rings on the cover. Pages inside have their corners turned over in remembrance. The contents section is decorated with stars. And on the title page, ‘Tony Frazer’ is scratched in blue-black ink, written by a hand that might just have been his own.