My Family's Library

A library I haven't entirely read but know very well - existing and growing together with this constant in my life

I have been nurtured
From the wisdom of words and empathy,
Within the dusty old shelves of the library at home.
With books, their covers and their re-readings,
imbibed within the collective memory of my family members,
Who breathe and store those words and sentences
twirling within the confines of wood and glass.

I have grown up looking and admiring those shelves upon shelves of spines,
That promised worlds beyond my reality,
Coaxing me to approach and dissolve within them.
They have been dusted and organized over the years,
Through years of cyclic spring and autumn cleanings.
I have admired the illustrations and art within those pages
Pop-up books or otherwise,
I have skimmed through them for school projects,
Researching didactic issues while dealing
with the complicated emotions of growing up.

I was never allowed to mark them with lines or words
Or to deface them in any way while reading.
They were deservedly worshipped in our humble abode,
Where these portals to education and knowledge
were the only keys to survival and success.
They own us way more than we ever could own them.
These books, that claimed my home even before I was born,
are given their due respect by me,
like many other elderly utensils, clothes and trinkets in our house.
They are not dog-eared versions of themselves,
And I feel they never will be.
They are untouched by any kind of defilement.
They have seen our family grow
And must have seen and heard so much,
Perhaps, a lot more than I would ever know.
While my family’s love language will always remain food,
These books might just be the only tangible evidence of its core.

(Gel pens on toned paper sketchbook - drawn in May 2025 from a book in my family’s library)

I have been brought up around these books
That say a lot and have remained silent,
That have been touched by me but left undevoured.
It never occurred to me to build a library of my own
Since I am yet to read these filial scrolls.
They are the wealth my family is decidedly proud of,
Treasure trove of our childhood and adolescence,
And adults returning to their familiar partners-in-crime
That had helped in escaping exam anxiety, meeting school project deadlines,
and the last-minute completion of school-assigned holiday chores.

I haven’t created memories of my own with all of them,
But I have memories of my siblings
recounting their experiences of reading them
While we re-shelved and re-organized these priceless editions trapped in time.
They have managed to seep into my existence and memories
even without being completely read,
Such is their magic and presence in my life.

We now return to them,
when we are all together,
when they are being introduced
to my nephew, his new acquaintances to our family history.
Reading, savouring, and worshipping these,
Are the only way we know
how to continue our family legacy,
of books that have been preserved
over decades of movement,
within the shelves and outside.

We hope to nurture our next generation with them,
Our long-standing; horizontally, vertically and diagonally aligned,
Trusted old friends,
Centered within it, the fulcrum to our family home,
That have remained the same,
While everyone, and everything else, changed.

(Gel pens on toned paper sketchbook - drawn in May 2025 from a book in my family’s library)

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