BackOf songlines and Moleskine
Like many, I bought my first Moleskine notebooks believing I was following in the tradition of Chatwin and the likes of Picasso and Hemingway
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I first encountered songlines in a book of the same name by Bruce Chatwin. The concept of ancient powerful creators travelling across the land (Australia in this case) singing into existence everything that crossed their paths was strangely appealing. There is, after all, a power to names.
That was in 1988 or 1989, a year or two after the book was published. I was in college; it was Holi; and I was reading in H’s room because neither he nor I wanted to partake of the festivities on campus. It was his book.
I liked the book enough to source and read more Chatwin. In fact I read them all. I liked In Patagonia more than I did The Songlines, maybe because it was Chatwin’s first. Or maybe it was the place. There’s a wonderful essay by Chatwin’s biographer Nicholas Shakespeare on the remote corner of the world I hope to visit one day. And I read the biography too, well over a decade after I first encountered Chatwin. Indeed, Chatwin may have been dead when I first read The Songlines. He died, of complications arising from AIDS, in January 1989.
I also first encountered Moleskine notebooks in The Songlines, although I didn’t know them by that name then.
Here’s the passage:
“Do you mind if I use my notebook?" I asked
“Go ahead."
I pulled from my pocket a black, oilcloth-covered notebook, its pages held in place with an elastic band.
“Nice notebook," he said.
“I used to get them in Paris," I said. “But now they don’t make them any more."
Like many others, I bought my first Moleskine notebooks, when I could afford them, believing that I was following in the tradition of Chatwin. The promotional plug inside each notebook told me Matisse, Picasso and Hemingway had all been partial to them too.
Years later, I read in Newsweek that the Moleskine brand was born only in 1995, created by an Italian secretary who, inspired by their description in The Songlines, took the idea to a Milanese stationery company. I still use them, although a bit of the magic is gone.
The Big Story this week is on songlines, actually a traveller’s perception of a songline she walked. It is an interesting journey.
Meanwhile, my colleagues and I at Mint are making a short journey ourselves, from our 16th floor newsroom, where Mint was launched almost nine years ago, to a swank new one on the 1st floor.
The change means I will no longer see painted storks, pelicans (our office is, as a bird flies, quite close to the Delhi zoo) and Egyptian vultures riding the thermals outside my window. It also means I will not spend an average of 20-25 minutes a day waiting for the lift. A dash of magic replaced by a dose of pragmatism.
R. Sukumar is editor, Mint.
Comments are welcome at feedback@livemint.com
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