Eta Dom

 Living on Janpath in the 1970s gave us easy access to the British Council Library, the American Center and the Russian (Soviet Union) Center.

Of the three, the British Council library had a very good collection of books.  Appa became a member,  I do not remember whether my brother also had a membership or not.  From my view point, it was a wonderful place for they had a children's section and I was introduced to the books written by Enid Blyton.  Even today, despite the obvious racist overtones, they still remain a favourite, to be dipped into now and then.

The American Center functioned more as an information center.  But they did have a small library. This is where we got to read Life with Father and Life with Mother, both written by Clarence Day.  I also remember that they had a book of American Plays.  That is how I read "The Philadelphia Marriage", Arsenic and Old Lace, and the Man who came to Dinner.

The Russian Center too was an information center.  They did not have a library but they made up for it by deluging the Indian market with affordable books published either by Mir (Peace) Publications or Progress Publishers.  These books were English translation of the Russian books and included both fiction and non-fiction.  That is how Tolstoy, Turgenev, Pushkin, and Gorky (after reading Mother I never got the courage to read any of his other books) came into our lives.

We were introduced to the American Center because the librarian had a problem with the telephone.  Those days telephone was not freely available and even if a person had a telephone, there was no guarantee that it would work.  Kidwai Bhawan Telephone exchange was notorious for its non-functional property and it was Appa's job to soothe the irate customers.  Of course we made many friends this way.  That is how the librarian at the American Center entered our lives.  Under his guidance we became members of the American Center.  He also provided us free subscription to Span, which was American propaganda magazine.

The Russian Center swam into our orbit because my younger athai (Appa's 2nd older sister).  Athai was a writer and she won the Soviet Land Prize.  She came to Delhi to accept the award.  She was learning Russian those days as the prize included a trip to Soviet Union.  Between her and the Russian Center, they managed to convince appa to subscribe to Soviet Land, which was their propaganda magazine, for three years.  We were non-aligned keeping with the fact that India was one of the founding members of the Non-aligned Movement.  According to my brother, Span was readable while Soviet Land was completely unreadable.  Both he and I remember that it used to contain folk/fairy tales which we would read.  I also remember that either that or Soviet Woman used to contain embroidery/knitting/cross stitch patterns for I still have some of the patterns that I saved from the magazine.

The subscription to Soviet Land included linguaphone to learn Russian.  It included a blue coloured 45 rpm gramophone disc and a book.  These arrived every month for 3 years.  Athai and appa were were enthusiastic but amma was skeptical of the project.  And she was right for appa never opened the book or listened to the disc.  It was quietly relegated to a project to be taken up after retirement.

But, my brother and I did open the first one.  Over the course of hot Summer days I learnt the Cyrillic alphabets and was introduced to the Russian family comprising of Mama, Papa, Anton, and Anna.  Then came Eta Dom or This is a house.

That is where I stopped. Eta Dom remains etched in my memory.

Few years back, with my parents becoming older, my brother and I threw away the linguaphone records, unopened and unlearnt.