Flipping through the news from India I noticed that a prominent astrophysicist Jayant Narlikar had passed away recently. That name seemed vaguely familiar from my childhood and with a little digging I re-discovered that he was the author of one of my favorite childhood books A Journey through the Universe. This was one of the many fantastic children’s books from the Nehru Bal Pustakalaya collection that were a large part of my early years.
I first discovered these books when my school had a book fair organized by their publisher National Book Trust. It was a thrilling and unique experience to see a part of your school transform into a book fair for a few days, to get some cash from parents, to sample and shop the books alone or with friends (without parent supervision) and to make the crucial decision on which few books to buy with the limited amount of cash. The few books I bought in this way felt so precious, the feel of that rough paper, the smell of freshness, that iconic rose logo at the top-left corner of each book cover and the beautiful illustrations by Sudhir Dar. I would read these books a thousand times over and they truly showed me what a wonderful world I inhabited.
These books stood out in that era with their style, with each book having its own unique cover and inner art. Also, rare for that era, these were full color covers, not limited 2 or 3 bland shades, but shockingly bright colors in their full glory. Jayant Karlikar’s book and the 2-part Inventions that changed the world by Najabat Ali remain the most memorable of the lot to me with superb funny cartoons by Sudhir Dar. These books covered pretty much the every swath of science, from physics to scientists, giving me a taste of things that lay beyond the little world in India of the 80s.