I hate bookworms

I love books. Study books, not so much. Not because they were boring. Just because I had to read them it took away that essential magic books have. Anyway, like I was saying, I love books. I don't remember when this love started. I was probably around six or seven when I had my first proper books. I remember their names still, and I remember that I ditched them because they didn't have pictures. It was possibly another couple of years when I finally read them, and boy oh boy, how I regretted not reading them earlier. But the love was sparked. I would jealously watch them in other's hands, I would dreamily stare at them on the bookshelves & bookshops, I would actually dream about them, and of course, I would read them; whenever and wherever possible.

I hate bookworms. You know, those insects which eat away lines and pages of old books and keep you wondering what was in those lines and pages. It's so frustrating, so many magic spells and secret codes are lost this way. Yes, I love old books. They give such a wonderful vibe of mystery and adventure. Every time I saw one, I would expect an old parchment-map to slip from its pages. A hand-drawn map with rivers and mountains from an unknown land, an unbound land where the monstrosity of civilization is yet to take hold. True, I haven't found such a map yet, but that's only because I haven't read that many books either. Then there was the possibility of finding secret codes scribbled in tiny handwriting. I always checked the margins of the old books very carefully and sometimes even kept a magnifying-glass at hand too. What codes? How would I know, I haven't found one, yet. They could be the alchemy to grow the silver blooms, they could be the date for a star that appears every thousand years, or they could be the direction to pass the snowy Tian Shan.

I love new books too. They are crisp and fresh. They look smart and suave in their sharp edges and neat bindings. What they lack in an enigma, they make up for it with convenience. No bookworms, to start with. Then there's the convenience of availability. There's this damn book, The Disturber of Peace, that I searched for 35 freaking years. Even better-known books like Tom Sawyer or Three Men in a Boat are hard to find these days while Syed Mujtaba Ali seems to be going out of fashion. Oh, the looks I get from the salespeople when I ask for some of my favorites. On the other hand, Stephan King or Terry Pratchett seem to be available at every corner-stores.

So I have this wild idea. I want to build a city for books. It will be all about books and reading; libraries, bookshops, reading areas, and whatever you need to enjoy reading. Yes, there will be living areas for people working in libraries, bookshops, and other places, and for people coming to read/buy books. Then there will be restaurants, hospitals and other stuff too. It will have all the books published in the history of mankind. Books in every language spoken by a human, from Arabic to Zulu. Khasi fairy tales will mingle with Romani poetry. There will be books in the most obscure languages and we will script tales that don't even have alphabets.

Now the question is, how do we plan the neighborhoods? Should it be according to language? Then the city would be too fragmented because, thankfully, there are still many mainstream languages while the Amharic and the Oromo will be lost in the maze of high-streets and back-alleys. Maybe it should be according to genres; fantasy, biography etc. But the centrepiece will be a huge reading lounge with a retractable roof. At night the roof will be retracted and you can literally read under the stars. Imagine reading one of your favorite science-fictions and when you lean back you gaze at billions of luminaries across the galaxies.