Crossposted on the Enid Blyton Facebook group…
I have no interesting tale to tell – but after discovering this Facebook group and seeing all the old covers shared here (so many of which made memories of a bygone age come rushing back) I’ve been aching to go back home where my parents stay (and where my childhood book-stash is) and look at the Enid Blyton’s I owned as a kid. I was surprised in a way to find I actually had only 7 of them with me. The low number was expected, but somehow over the years I’d made myself believe I probably had close to a couple of dozen. Aah the tricks our minds play…
90’s India (suburban Mumbai to be precise) was a far cry from today – circulating libraries ran the roost and that was for a long time the only place for me to read Enid Blyton’s from. The area I grew up with had three libraries at reasonable distance (for anyone from Thane on this group, these were Shri Gajanan Library, Popular Library and Prashant Library – such unpretentious 90s names!). I must’ve read every Enid Blyton in each of these multiple times – think I changed libraries every year and a bit once I finished all the books I could find which interested me. They only allowed you to take 1 book and 1 comic/magazine at a time, so obviously I used to go every. single. day. to get the best possible ROI on the Rs. 30 per month fee.
Bookstores may have existed but they were definitely not something as a kid we knew too much about or dared to really ask our parents about too frequently. I recall once visiting the Nehru Planetarium in 1996 as an 8 year old- I recall the date precisely since this is also when India lost that embarrassing test match to South Africa at Durban being bowled out for 100 and 66 – but I digress, wrong group for cricket nostalgia. There is a small gift shop outside the planetarium which had books including the Famous Five series, and the one which my library then did not have, the very first in the series – Five Go to Treasure Island! And they had brand new covers – unlike any of the 20 or 30 year old versions I was used to reading. I remember asking my mother to buy it and she probably asked me do we really need it? After which I threw a tantrum there and she put her foot down well and truly to make sure I did not ‘get to cry my way into something’ (#90sParenting as well). I remember I sulked all the way home.
It was only many years later when I visited my mother’s workplace once and discovered the big Asiatic store at Churchgate stocked Enid Blytons. I cracked a deal with her to get me one book every year subject so some good marks criteria which is how I ended up with the 4 Adventure Series‘ books with similar covers – which btw was my absolute favoritest Enid Blyton series of all time, one which I spent many days and nights fantasizing about being in the place of the gang (I have this distinctive memory that I fancied myself as Philip for some inexplicable reason…)
So if the libraries had a limited stock, and buying from bookstores wasn’t really an option – what is a boy to do? Necessity is the mother of invention, not to forget non-helicopter parenting era where kids weren’t micromanaged all day. I spent many a summer afternoon during the holidays scavenging raddiwaalas within a walkable or cyclable radius.
The raddiwala is an Indian (Mumbai?) institution I am truly unable to find the appropriate English translation for. Scrap dealer is the closest but does not embody the essence of it at all. Raddiwaalas are primarily where old newspapers are given away, for which they then pay you back for by the kilo. But sometimes folks (rich and uncultured ones obviously!) also give away their old books which the larger raddiwaalas would stack somewhere at a corner or at the back of their cubbyholes of stores and then sell for Rs. 5 or 10 depending on the quality. Now this was affordable – one could always borrow that amount from my grandparents or repurpose money to buy a rubber cricket ball which also cost Rs. 10. Or even better, offer to accompany the raddiwala as he collected the old newspapers from our house after which he would be in a good mood and let a nosy pre-teenager scour through his junk for a good 30 mins for any hidden treasures. For many years, while walking down the street if I ever crossed a raddiwaala with an adult, I had to stop and check-in if there was anything to beg them for. Can’t blame them if they privately wondered if this kid is a bit of a nutcase! The Adventurous Four is one of this lot…but I wonder where are the rest?
Finally – The Green Goblin Book, Mr. Meddle’s Muddles and Hedgegrow Tales were my first ever Enid Blyton’s which my Aunt gifted me on my 7th birthday which is what made me pick up the other ones from my library and so on. Aah the butterfly effect of her probably choosing these on a lark to give a precocious kid and the magical route that led me through my childhood (she was an Enid fan as well from her childhood, but who knows whether these things stick with kids). I’ve clicked photos of the date on the front page and will send them to her tomorrow with a big Thank You!
Yada Yada Yada 