“Suit the action to the word, the word to the action.” — William Shakespeare. These words by the Bard perfectly encapsulate my lifelong fascination with language and my insatiable hunger for expanding my vocabulary. The thirst for knowledge is a constant companion, driving me to absorb new ideas and words like a sponge. My journey with dictionaries began with a small Chambers Dictionary, passed down to me by my siblings. It had their names scribbled on the first page, and mine was soon added, marking the start of a lifelong bond.
Over the years, my dictionary collection grew exponentially. Book shops near the university became my favorite haunts, visited at least once a week. I reveled in browsing the shelves, devouring new titles on literature, theology, and fiction, from the popular Mills & Boon and Barbara Cartland to Dennis Robins, Georgette Heyer, Lucy Walker, and many others. But my longest pauses were always near the section housing dictionaries, thesauruses, and books of quotations, their glossy covers a beacon in the literary landscape.
Buying books was an exhilarating experience, limited only by the cash in my pocket. The shop owner, ever obliging to a regular visitor, would open an account for me every month. Bargaining for a good discount was an art, dependent on the number of purchases I made. After making my selections, paying for some books and noting others in the register, I would carry my literary “loot” home, clutching it close to my heart. Book lovers can attest to the pure joy of simply holding a book.
Francis Bacon’s words resonated deeply: “Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.” This perfectly describes my approach to reading. While some books are read only in parts, others are consumed wholly, with diligence and attention. My dictionary was always the book I read regularly. As a student, I would pore over it, building my vocabulary one word at a time. Each new word initially sounded alien, but gradually seeped into my consciousness. I might not have been a Shashi Tharoor, able to recall every word at the right moment, but I always had my dictionaries to find the one I needed.
Later, when I began teaching, my collection expanded to include dictionaries on Greek Mythology and literary terms. Teaching English literature, particularly the essays of Charles Lamb and Bacon, required frequent consultations of these aids. Milton’s poems were filled with references and allusions that demanded careful exploration, and I would diligently look them up in my collection. It was imperative for me to understand these references thoroughly before explaining them to my students.
When I transitioned to teaching Indian writing in English, I again scoured the bookshelves for titles on Indian mythology and philosophy. While I had heard countless tales in my childhood, they were simply grandmothers’ stories, passed down through oral tradition without any attempt at comprehensive understanding. My collection of dictionaries and encyclopedias continued to grow, with the thesaurus becoming my go-to resource for research writing. I always strived to avoid repeating the “same” word in a sentence, and the thesaurus proved invaluable for finding antonyms and synonyms. Sometimes, I fell prey to using an uncommon word instead of its more common counterpart, not to showcase my intellect, but because it simply sounded and “looked” better in the sentence.
Looking back on those days, I wonder what we would have done in the digital age. Would we, like the present generation, have simply logged onto Google on our Android phones? While I do use Google occasionally, it doesn’t provide the complete background of a reference point like a mythological encyclopedia. It offers only perfunctory information. I am grateful that my generation fell in love with books, a love my children have inherited, complemented by their own collections. The joy of holding a book, of tracing its pages, of discovering new words and worlds, is an experience that transcends the digital age. It is a connection to the past, a testament to the enduring power of the written word, and a legacy that will continue to shape generations to come.
