Book theft stories, or My bosom hides a thief

· Long Read

Dhyan Tarpan plunges into the world of books

Library

It is said that bookshops in Iraq leave their books out all night because, according to them, ‘readers do not steal and thieves do not read.’ Is it really so? Such a saying must have emerged out of a general ‘sacred feeling’ towards books. There could be hundreds of exceptions around book thefts (including recent news: a burglar in Italy put his stealing on hold when he found a book on mythology, and was caught while reading it).1 But still we would love to believe so.

From the burning of huge libraries like the one in Alexandria (Egypt) and in Nalanda (India), history has in many instances been ruthlessly cruel with books. In recent history, during World War II, the Nazi lootings of European libraries (as well as art galleries) were equally disgraceful. But at the same time, people’s fight against the looters, and for the preservation of their libraries, was heart-touching too. The Book Thieves by Anders Rydell describes the unforgettable effort, in that war, to preserve books. And in Markus Zusak’s novel The Book Thief there is a wonderful episode about these Nazi lootings and book burnings.

Books are treated as something noble, and… in India, if we accidentally step on a book, we immediately apologize by touching it, as if we were apologizing to a person by touching their feet. We don’t do this only with books, by the way; any tool we are working with is supposed to be treated respectfully, and should we inadvertently drop or mistreat it, we would apologize to it. These are reflections of a sense of religiousness. Nowadays, however, most such gestures are done merely out of superstition, or just out of habit and not from a sense of respect.

Discarding books, though, is still considered sacrilegious. Perhaps because of that, burning a book became one of the strongest ways to try to control a populace. The German poet Heinrich Heine asserts that ‘Wherever books are burned, in the end people will be burned too.’

The Iraqi proverb ‘Readers do not steal and thieves do not read’ could be wrong, because there could be readers who do steal books, and there could be thieves who would love to read a few books. Are these bibliokleptomaniacs exceptions?

No – book theft is not an exception at all. It is as old as books. Sometimes there are good reasons for stealing a book. Sometimes we would like to possess a book, the same way we would like to possess our lover.

I heard that in the Middle Ages, when books were still written by hand, to steal a book was considered one of the most selfish forms of theft. It’s funny that in that period, curses were used as a weapon to prevent book thefts. One of them was: so inscribed in the front of the book – that whoever stole it would find they were holding a snake in their hands instead of a book. With illness, or blindness, or eternal damnation as a consequence! 2

The most infamous book thieves emerged not from the criminal fringes, but from the elite and respected class of society. One of these famous thieves was a Bavarian theologian, Aloys Picher. In 1871, he was caught with a huge theft of 4000 volumes from a library. 3

Even now, another kind of book theft is happening online. Many sites are providing books for free download, breaking all copyright rules. Sometimes as a protest or revenge, on the basis of some ideology or other. (To be frank, I have enjoyed this kind of theft sometimes, too…)

My first book theft – or at least an attempt

I was not a successful or infamous book thief, but I have made a stab at it. I have even tried to get it done by others… I have a feeling that any book lover must have encountered a tempting moment to steal a book. Of course there can sometimes be a ‘good reason’ (as an excuse…) I don’t know whether Osho ever stole a book, but he once said, “Let them steal,” when he was told that his books were being stolen from our exhibition stalls at a book fair in Russia. 4

Thirty years ago, in 1992 or ‘93, when my reading choices were taking a specific turn, towards science and spirituality, like many of my friends I took out a membership in the nearby Town Hall Library in Thrissur, Kerala. It was a huge place with thousands of books. I never really explored it in depth – I just used to pick up one or two books from the ‘new arrivals’ rack in the lobby. But after some months, I came to know that many people were stealing books from there. One of my friends proved it to be true, by getting me a few of the stolen books. And he gave me a good discounted price…

I was never happy with borrowed books. However old, battered or second-hand a book might be, it had to be ‘my own’. I don’t know if this has to do with ego or possessiveness. But then, Where is the money to buy ‘my’ books? Slowly slowly, the temptation to steal a book now and then started brooding in my ‘devil’s workshop’.

The next time I visited the library, I studied the set-up with the different library halls, the different rooms for different categories of books, how the books were issued, how people were moving around generally, whether proper checking was happening or not, etc. One thing I noticed was that whoever came down from the first floor with books was not being rechecked. This was because the books from the first floor were issued from the desk on the first floor, whilst the books taken from the shelves on the ground floor were checked at another counter.

I then thought, What if I took two books from a shelf on the ground floor, and before leaving went up to the first floor as if I was looking for some more books there? In case I was, then, on my way out, stopped at the counter on the ground floor I could just say, ‘I only went upstairs looking for some other titles there also.’

If I was then able to leave the building without being noticed, as if I had already checked out the books with the first floor counter, then the books were mine. OMG! So easy! Why didn’t I think of it before? I would have a big collection of books by now!

I went to the philosophy section and from the topmost rack I randomly took a book, as if it was the book I was looking for. The first theft of my life was approaching! I thought my heartbeat could be heard even by the man sitting at the counter. I suddenly perspired, although it was not that hot at all. I felt as if all the books in the library had become alert about my plans and had started releasing a particular odour. What type of smell was it? Does damp silence smell like that? Do books react like insects or plants? Oh! I suddenly felt so tired. Although no one was in the room, I pretended I was searching for a particular book. Then finally I found it, there it was, wow! I grabbed a book, any book, from the rack.

While climbing the steps to the first floor, I felt as if I was going to collapse. The corridor was suffocating. Somehow I sat on a bench and opened the books. Though my physical condition was awful, I was conscious that, from the outside, I looked like a normal and mature book reader.

After a long sigh, I looked into the first book: A Search in Secret India by Paul Brunton. I turned a few pages but was unable to read. The title and the name of the author were unfamiliar to me. In those days I was not at all familiar with names like Ramana Maharshi and all those people. And I didn’t know who this Paul Brunton was. All I knew was that what I was doing was not good. I wouldn’t have bothered whether it was right or wrong, but I was sure it was not good. All the ancient-looking pale yellow pages of the book whispered in a dampened voice: This is the only secret: Don’t steal books!

The second book was Will to Power by Nietzsche. I closed it immediately. Though I hadn’t read anything by Nietzsche, the name was familiar to me. But I was not in the mood to read it. No will to read. I got up and walked downstairs. I felt that a huge dark shadow had fallen upon my face. Somehow I staggered across the lobby and left. Ah! No one noticed me.

I started complaining to myself about how irresponsible the library staff was. How many people must have stolen books like this? Thousands of books must have been lost. Is this how a library is meant to be run? If I was in their place, I would make sure that no book could be stolen! I would have taught them a good lesson!

But before leaving the library compound, I heard a very feeble voice within, feeble but penetrating like needles, saying, Not good, not good. Yeah, it’s not good what I did to the books! That’s all. No logic is working for or against. But it is so. Not good. Not good at all. My goodness, what’s this goodness? I decided to go back and put the books back on the racks.

That’s when the real problem arose. How could I go back with two books that had not been checked out? Should they question me, I would be caught for sure. So many images of being caught and being questioned in front of hundreds of people flashed up in my mind. Would they believe me if I said that I took these books out by mistake and that I was now returning them? Or would they declare me as the permanent and terrible Book Thief of that library?

I climbed up the stairs like a drunkard, head hanging, unable to pretend I was one of the many library visitors. I was now moving like a thief, walking like a culprit. No, not a culprit – I corrected myself – I was someone who had not ‘behaved well’ with the books. I couldn’t remember from which racks the books has been taken. I didn’t even have the strength to raise my hand to the upper racks. I made sure nobody was in the room. Still my hands trembled. Somehow, I pushed the books into a small gap I found. My energy was draining away, even while I was exiting the building with empty hands.

Coming out of the compound, I looked back at the Town Hall building. It looked the same as before; people were coming and going, roaming around; there were books in their hands, I noticed. “They are not stolen books,” I told myself, “books can’t be stolen.”

Years later, I bought The Search in Secret India. Ramana Maharshi and Paul Brunton became familiar names in my collection. I also got Nietzsche’s Will to Power, but I haven’t read that one yet.

The book that ‘fell’ into the gap

After I moved up north to the Mumbai area in 1998, I was very curious to finally see the ‘pavement book stalls’ in town. I had heard that in Mumbai you could get any book, and at a cheaper price, on the streets! But the place I had found to live was quite far: 200km from Mumbai city!

The following day I took a bus to visit the city. Somewhere in the middle of town, the bus conductor said to me, ‘This is Mumbai!’ I got off and the first thing I saw was a signboard which said in red letters: SECOND HAND BOOKSHOP. It was on a busy street, just opposite the bus stop. I rushed through the traffic straight to the shop.

It was a godown rather than a shop, but was perfectly well stacked. The gaps between the shelves were just wide enough for a lean person to get through, and there wasn’t enough light to read the titles or details of the books. But, somehow, I loved the place. The dust and dampness of the books didn’t suffocate me. Rather, the ancient fragrance of the books took me into an ethereal mood. How true is Carl Sagan’s ‘Books break the shackles of time.’ Billions and billions of ‘funny dark squiggles’ are whispering silently on billions of pages.

I picked up quite a few books and read the titles, but hadn’t heard about any of them nor did I recognise the authors. Most of the books were English literature. And there were many books on social subjects, science and all. As everything was unfamiliar, naturally I thought they must be very important books. How easily does the mind read strangeness as importance!

In those days, even in a small magazine stall, my eyes would always be searching to see if there were any books by Osho. Unfortunately I couldn’t find any Osho titles there. After spending hours in the godown, just before I came out, I saw a big old hardbound book on the Bhagavad Gita by Nataraja Guru. I had heard the background story of how that book came to be written. I really wanted to buy that one, but there was not enough money in my pockets…

What if somebody picked it up and bought it before the next visit when I had enough money? And who knew when that might be? Maybe after many months? How could I ask the shop owner to keep it for me?

So I dropped the book into a gap between the wall and the shelf. If any staff member finds and sells it, well, OK. Otherwise, let it stay there until my next visit. This, my first city visit, ended with a quick browse of a few more ‘pavement book stalls’ around the area.

Most nights I would feel sad about the book that had ‘fallen’ behind the shelf. They must have found it by now and it must have been bought by someone. Otherwise, this great book will be suffering from negligence in that dust and darkness! I had behaved cunningly with that book! I mulled over the notion that I should have indeed talked to the shop owner and asked him to keep it for me. But now, what to do?

After a couple of months, my boss had to do some shopping in the city. When I asked him about that location, he said he knew the area: ‘It’s Kalbadevi Street near Metro Junction.’ I asked him to go to that bookshop and, just near the main door, look into the gap between the wall and the bookshelf, pick up the book and please buy it for me. As he was not a man of books nor of any such interests, he didn’t ask for details of the book. He said OK, and off he went.

I wasn’t sure the book would still be hiding there. And what if my boss bought another book which by chance had fallen into that same gap? Do books fall like that? Will he be bringing me the same book? Or another one? The probabilities were that anything could happen. ‘The laws of probability, so true in general, so fallacious in particular,’ said Edward Gibbon.

But to my joy and delight, my boss went to the bookshop, put his hand into the gap behind the shelf at the entrance, found the book and bought it. It was the same Gita. How strange and intriguing is the ‘world line’ of a book!

Nataraja Guru’s Gita is still with me. It’s a very scholarly type of book. But I love it.

My dearest book thieves

A few years later, while working on a construction project (this time I had shifted my stay to within city limits; I was just 40km away from Mumbai) so was often close to Kalbadevi Street. I became friendly with many of the ‘pavement bookshops’ in Mumbai, including the above-mentioned Second Hand Bookshop. In those days, I was seriously collecting all the books Osho had mentioned in Books I Have Loved. (Total craziness, but I managed to collect almost all of them, in print or as e-books!)

Around then The Times Of India published an interview with the owner of that bookshop. He mentioned the golden old days of serious readers and book lovers who were frequent visitors to his shop. He remembered that whenever Osho happened to be in Mumbai, he used to visit his bookshop, always enquiring for particular books.

The shop owner remembered that one day Osho told him jokingly that he was supposed to give him the books for free as he was living the life of a sannyasin. The shop owner’s reply was, “You may be a sannyasin, you people don’t need money. But I am a samsari, a householder, and I need the money.”

After reading that interview, I asked the shop owner to tell me more about Osho’s visits. It turns out he was happy and proud that he had given that befitting reply to Osho! He also recalled that Osho always asked for very rare and particular titles in all kinds of subjects.

From that day on, two staff members at the shop became my friends. I used to ask them about rare titles, especially those which are mentioned in Books I Have Loved. One day I got a call from them, early in the morning, to get to the shop as quickly as possible so that they could give me one of the titles I was searching for. I got there at 7.30 and they gave me The Tantric Way by Madhu Khanna and Ajit Mukherjee. To my surprise, they revealed the truth, which was: They had stolen this book from their own shop, and I had to come so early so that the owner wouldn’t know. Otherwise he might have kept it for himself, or looked for a ‘big deal’ with someone else who was also looking for it.

They stole books from their own shop a few more times for me. I always had to get to the shop first thing in the morning! They gave me one or two darshan diaries. They had stolen Yantra by Madhu Khanna, and Hindu America by Chaman Lal. These were all titles which were not available on the market. I never understood what their benefit in doing these thefts was, because they were charging me a minimum price. They could have asked me for a larger amount – I would have been ready to pay more.

Sometimes I thought that maybe they were also in search of the titles I had asked for. I don’t think they were book readers, but they were knowledgeable, and familiar with the main writers and books. Whenever we met on the street, they would say things like, ‘Mirdad is on the way, don’t worry.’ Or, ‘Martin Heidegger is coming next week.’

They were my dearest book thieves.

Meri bukal de vich chorni

Now, back to me, I would like to say: ‘Meri bukal de vich chorni’– ‘My bosom hides a thief’ – it’s a line from a Sufi song composed by a poet and fakir, Baba Bulleh Shah.

But Bulleh Shah’s thief is not just a book thief. He is a higher dimensional thief. Not stealing books, but stealing the content. Not stealing the music, but stealing the silence. Not stealing the flowers, but stealing the fragrance.

‘My bosom hides a thief.’

Even if everything is available, one loves to steal. It’s a habit.

And the mischievous Master always tempts us to steal him.

Now what to steal?

No-mind?

Emptiness?

Or is it that the thief has to steal himself?

Notes
  1. Suspected burglar caught after sitting down with book (bbc.co.uk)
  2. 9 Curses for Book Thieves from the Middle Ages and Later (bulbapp.io)
  3. Aloys Pichler stole 4000 volumes from the St. Petersburg library and was sent to Siberia (wikipedia.org)
  4. Quoted from Osho, The Great Pilgrimage: From Here to Here, Ch 12, Q 1
    I have informed my people, “Don’t pay any attention – let them steal. At least those books will reach to millions of people, and if you catch somebody red-handed, just tell him, `I’m not against stealing; what can you do if you don’t have any money? Just keep one thing in mind: when you have read it, pass it on. That is the price.'”
    And as reported in the interview with Lani: Osho’s World Ambassador

Featured image by Luke Tanis on Unsplash

Tarpan

Dhyan Tarpan is a writer, translator and musician from Kerala. dhyantarpan.com

Comments are closed.