While I was at Borders yesterday, I tried reading on the Kindle that was displayed there. I was wondering if I could ever enjoy reading on an electronic device. With any book I read, the pages invariably become my canvas- empty spaces, margins are full of scribbled notes and doodles. That is why I hate borrowing library books. I rather buy my own and scribble. The kindle puts me in a passive absorptive mode which makes me very uncomfortable.
This reminds me of one person who had such a big problem with my scribbling on text books, as he had with me chewing the back of my pen/pencil. This was a chemistry professor in Chennai, under whose tutelage I was in for a couple of weeks. He was a very religious orthodox man, as may be expected from any Chennai-Mylapore grandpa. A brilliant chemistry professor and a very good teacher, he had been invited for lectures numerous times from universities all over the world. He declined every single one of them because of the medival Hindu belief that sailing across the ocean was sin!
So every lecture, he would sit across the table with an eraser in hand deligently and gently erasing the pencil marks I had made on my text books. Of course I dont remember any chemistry he taught me and that was not the subject I studied later anyway. All I remember is him saying to me- "Please do not scribble like this" and "please do not chew on your pencil". I guess then everything he tried to teach me has been lost for good. I am also guessing if he is alive today, he would think the kindle is a great idea.
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