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A first edition of Lewis Carroll's `Through the Looking-Glass'

"Potential market for your book," the Author's Questionnaire read as I prepared to send my latest manuscript to the publisher. "Dwindling rapidly and nearing extinction — both domestically and globally", I wanted to fill in. Fervent hope (and the potential risk of truth) made me write "Universal appeal — both domestically and globally". This is the melancholic truth that every author must accept with serenity of fortitude.

"Here is a nice gift," I told my son on the occasion of the World Book Day. "What", he exclaimed, "I am already suffering with my school bag stuffed with them!"

The book I held in my hands had thrilled my imagination when I was 13 and continues to have a mystical meaning today when I am pushing the outer limits of 30. "It's about a sweet little girl called Alice and her adventures in wonderland with strange animals..." I began saying.

"Oh, I have played that kind of game", my son said. "It's like the nighthawk lady in a black hood who must steal a nuclear weapon from a forest fortress and I get to arm her with guns and grenades and make her kill all the critters in her way?"

I sullenly looked at the budding brave new world and he got busy with his PlayStation, annoyed at being interrupted. Gone are the days of bedtime fairytales read out by parents. Gone, the stories of rabbits and sparrows loaded with beauty, joy and, morals.

"We will cuddle him up between us and read out Alice and her adventures tonight," me and my wife resolved. During supper, I remembered a sequel on HBO and my wife was reminded of the penultimate part of a long-drawn serial.

After supper, we gently put our child to bed, gave him my Palm-Top and my cell phone with MMS to lull himself to sleep with. We kissed him goodnight, saving little Alice for the next World Book Day.

N. Kalyan Sagar

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