Touching

Yesterday morning, when making space for a new arrival in the extension book shelves, I almost culled my elderly copy of reference 1, snapped above. But, instead, I started to read it again.

Just over 500 pages of text, organised into 32 page signatures, tied together with four strands of brown string. Originally from Jaico Books, but no trace in the archives and I have no idea now where I got it from, other than that it was not new and was priced £1.50, so after decimalisation in 1971.

The bit that caught my eye this morning, very near the beginning on page 9, was about the two roads, one on each side of the river which he lived near as a child.

One road was not paved, and was covered with a thick layer of dust in the dry season, while the other was paved with crushed brick. Chaudhuri was not keen on this last as you had to wear shoes - perhaps sandals - if you did not want to cut your feet and he preferred the tactile sensation of his bare feet in the thick dust of the other road. And puzzling out the impressions left by others, both two-legged and four-legged.

From where I associated to our figurative use of the words 'touched' and 'touching'. Are these figurative uses rooted in our childhood, in our infancy, when touching and feeling were relatively much more important than they would be when older?

From where I further associated to making bread, to handling that rather odd material called dough. Of taking the bread through from a dry powder to the finished product. Which is reasonably time consuming, so I dare say I am deriving some tactile satisfaction from the activity. Satisfaction which is quite lost when you buy the factory product in a plastic bag. Somewhat lost when you buy a better product loose. Today being, as it happens, being the day of batch No.772, a batch which turned out very well indeed.

PS 1: all present and correct at reference 3, even if the author page is sorted by first name, rather than by the more usual second name. Some programmer saving himself a few minutes work? Or is this the form in India?

PS 2: I failed to find the address given for Jaico Books in gmaps, although I did get as far as a busy and likely looking Mahatma Gandhi Road, with this address probably more or less opposite the imposing buildings of Mumbai University, no doubt Bombay University at the time that they were built.

PS 3: I feel sure that at some point I had at least one other book by Chaudhuri. I don't recall seeing it recently and it was probably culled a long time ago, but I shall have another look.

PS 4: I have just learned from a correspondent that the tulips by the rectangular lily pond at Wisley, a place where we often indulge in a bit of bench life, tulips which were only just coming up about a month ago, were in full form today. As was the queue to get in after getting off the A3. But then, it was Easter Monday and the weather was spot on. See reference 4.

References

Reference 1: The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian - Nirad C. Chaudhuri.- 1951. My copy from the second impression from Jaico Books of 1966. Written when the author was about half way through his long life.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirad_C._Chaudhuri.

Reference 3: https://www.jaicobooks.com/.

Reference 4: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/03/pitcher-plant.html.