Dangers of reading, part 1

Jacob is, to put it mildly, a voracious reader. He reads constantly and very quickly, which results in a continual need for new books. One of his main worries about travelling was how we would get enough books, especially as he is generally reading two or three books at once. "Explain again how we're going to get books when we're away." was a request repeated numerous times before we left. One of my main worries, on the other hand, was how we would carry all the books. India in general, and New Delhi in particular is well-supplied with bookshops carrying English-language titles, but even so we have run out of things to read on occasion. Even if you have books there are times when you don't have a books with you and must fall back on whatever reading material can be found in your vicinity.

Not long after our arrival in New Delhi, we (in this case Surya, Nicky, Sam, Jay, Sakhti, Muni, Heather, Jacob and Charles Massey (one of the two Charleses) paid a visit to the National Gallery of Modern Art. I was lagging behind as we moved through the gallery, with Jacob with some of the others up ahead. Every now and then I asked one of the others where Jacob and Heather were and each time was told they were with another group (by this time we'd fragmented into several groups.) By the time I'd reached the end of the exhibits most of the others were outside but there was no sign of Jacob. People remembered seeing him a few minutes previously but he seemed to have disappeared. I went back and walked through the exhibits again. Fortunately, it's not a very big museum. No sign of him. Next Surya and I walked through the place again, this time with rather more urgency. I checked all the washrooms, in the hope he was there, to no avail. By now I was feeling a bit panicky. The prospect of Jacob disappearing mysteriously in a huge, strange city where we didn't speak the language was very unsettling. Surya went to explain things to the gallery front desk staff, who also seemed worried by this turn of events, and our auto-rickshaw drivers were pressed into service to do another pass through the gallery. I went off to check the washrooms once more, hoping that perhaps he'd been taken ill and was stuck there. Leaving one of the washrooms after another fruitless check I noticed a door marked "Library." I peeked through the part of the door not obscured by signs about opening hours and restrictions on access and what items could not be brought into the library and who should I see? Jacob was leaning over one of the reading room tables studying what turned out to be a book on Indian art, oblivious to our nightmare. Of course, I should have started by looking for a library.

[Museum note: the exhibition on Benodebehari Mukherjee is very interesting. Mukherjee produced some fine landscape paintings, as well as murals, textile designs, etchings and woodcuts.]