The brown-paper covered book
I don’t know if this is specific to India or my childhood. At the start of every new school year, one of the ritual involves parents visiting the ‘authorised book shop’ which may be in the school or in another neighbourhood, ticking off text books form the list provided by the class teacher, selecting an appropriate number of empty notebooks of some specified size and then buying a roll of brown paper.
Now I’m guessing the more modern, international schools may not follow this ritual. But I'm certain that across the country, thousands of little children are cutting brown paper into rectangular shapes and putting a ‘jilat’ or a cover on the notebooks to prevent wear and tear over a new term. I have memories of sitting down with my parents on the weekend before the start of a new term with paper, glue, tape and those all-important ‘name stickers’. They came in lots of bright colours with animals, flowers and cartoons as the background. You had to write your ‘FULL NAME’, ‘STANDARD’ (popular word for Grade, Class, and Year), ‘SUBJECT’ and also H.W. or C.W. to specify if the copy was to be used for Home Work or Class Work.
Over the years the retailers became smarter and started selling the brown paper cut exactly to size, so all you had to do was fold the corners and wet the glue to get a brown-papered copy ready in seconds. These ready-made covers also had the ‘NAME, STANDARD, SUBJECT’ pre-printed in black with lines to just fill them up. Covering books and copies was much faster, but the result was a bit dull. No scope for individual expression that those name-stickers brought- no flowery patterns, no airplanes and motorcars.
Half way through the term, there would be a lot of tape holding some torn covers together, the occasional oil stain where lime pickle had leaked from the tiffin box, an odd scribble or two and pen marks from desk-fights. When the covers looked beyond repair the teachers would fling the copy across the desk and demand a new cover be put on a.s.a.p.!
A few days ago, all these memories came rushing back to me during an innocuous trip to the ‘Ladies’ at my workplace. No, it wasn’t one of those 'loo inspiration' moments. You know, the type where you are struggling with a serious spreadsheet related problem, glued to your work chair, none of the numbers make sense, your neck seems stuck at an awkward position, the eyes are staring at the screen zombie-like, the fingers appear to be clicking the mouse at 20 clicks/ seconds, and then, in a moment of utter despair, you give it all up and decide to finally go to the washroom. You then emerge a few minutes later with THE solution to the problems of the life, universe and everything else (to misquote from other famous people’s text). Well, the point I’m trying to make is that it wasn’t one of those moments.
But as I dried my hands under the temperamental hand-drier I noticed a girl walk in the loo with a book and a pen. She put them both by the sink, and I saw it was a little notebook with a brown-paper cover. I hadn’t seen one of those for YEARS ! I looked at the girl again. She was definitely an adult employee (no school trainees). Then I tried to peek and check for a colourful label. There wasn’t one. But she had written her name down nicely on the cover, and there were no mango, lime or mirchi pickle stains. Full marks for that, I thought.
I thought hard- is my workplace a bit like school then? The office requires every one to clock in by 8:30 AM. Lunch is at 12:30 PM sharp. Back to work at 1 PM sharp. Free tea machine works only from 9 AM to 11 AM and 2 PM to 4 PM. A big crowd at the machine is discouraged, people are requested to hold the paper cup a certain way to avoid burns. We exit office at 5:05 PM sharp (unless on approved over-time). Hmm, I think the brown-paper school book was not so out of place here after all.
Now I’m guessing the more modern, international schools may not follow this ritual. But I'm certain that across the country, thousands of little children are cutting brown paper into rectangular shapes and putting a ‘jilat’ or a cover on the notebooks to prevent wear and tear over a new term. I have memories of sitting down with my parents on the weekend before the start of a new term with paper, glue, tape and those all-important ‘name stickers’. They came in lots of bright colours with animals, flowers and cartoons as the background. You had to write your ‘FULL NAME’, ‘STANDARD’ (popular word for Grade, Class, and Year), ‘SUBJECT’ and also H.W. or C.W. to specify if the copy was to be used for Home Work or Class Work.
Over the years the retailers became smarter and started selling the brown paper cut exactly to size, so all you had to do was fold the corners and wet the glue to get a brown-papered copy ready in seconds. These ready-made covers also had the ‘NAME, STANDARD, SUBJECT’ pre-printed in black with lines to just fill them up. Covering books and copies was much faster, but the result was a bit dull. No scope for individual expression that those name-stickers brought- no flowery patterns, no airplanes and motorcars.
Half way through the term, there would be a lot of tape holding some torn covers together, the occasional oil stain where lime pickle had leaked from the tiffin box, an odd scribble or two and pen marks from desk-fights. When the covers looked beyond repair the teachers would fling the copy across the desk and demand a new cover be put on a.s.a.p.!
A few days ago, all these memories came rushing back to me during an innocuous trip to the ‘Ladies’ at my workplace. No, it wasn’t one of those 'loo inspiration' moments. You know, the type where you are struggling with a serious spreadsheet related problem, glued to your work chair, none of the numbers make sense, your neck seems stuck at an awkward position, the eyes are staring at the screen zombie-like, the fingers appear to be clicking the mouse at 20 clicks/ seconds, and then, in a moment of utter despair, you give it all up and decide to finally go to the washroom. You then emerge a few minutes later with THE solution to the problems of the life, universe and everything else (to misquote from other famous people’s text). Well, the point I’m trying to make is that it wasn’t one of those moments.
But as I dried my hands under the temperamental hand-drier I noticed a girl walk in the loo with a book and a pen. She put them both by the sink, and I saw it was a little notebook with a brown-paper cover. I hadn’t seen one of those for YEARS ! I looked at the girl again. She was definitely an adult employee (no school trainees). Then I tried to peek and check for a colourful label. There wasn’t one. But she had written her name down nicely on the cover, and there were no mango, lime or mirchi pickle stains. Full marks for that, I thought.
I thought hard- is my workplace a bit like school then? The office requires every one to clock in by 8:30 AM. Lunch is at 12:30 PM sharp. Back to work at 1 PM sharp. Free tea machine works only from 9 AM to 11 AM and 2 PM to 4 PM. A big crowd at the machine is discouraged, people are requested to hold the paper cup a certain way to avoid burns. We exit office at 5:05 PM sharp (unless on approved over-time). Hmm, I think the brown-paper school book was not so out of place here after all.
Excellent piece....well just to let you know that given that my name has 16 alphaets, the stickers always felt short and it spilled over to the "brown paper". RR
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