The Sheep with the Golden Fleece

Today was like any other day from the past 12 months or so. I was yet again making my way to the 6th floor of Perry Castaneda Library with a mocha in my hand, hoping my favorite niche at the very end of the right section wasn't occupied. My head (chronic scheduler that I am) was buzzing with which of the innumerable tasks at hand I should tackle first - there were 2 papers to review, a data set of videos to process, and a mammoth project whose innards had to be dissected before the coding could even begin.

And so I exited the lift, turned right and started going past the scores of undergrads in their respective cubicles. I have walked down this side hundreds of times now - and it always takes me past the Youth section. Colorful covers in different languages, all intended for an audience that obviously does not have to worry about the reams of theses that would start in the next few rows. Today, for some reason, I couldn't resist - I went to a random shelf on a random row and picked out a big yellow book. And then I made my way to my niche.

I've always loved libraries. Whether it was our school library with its huge windows and circular tables and a collection of the most fascinating books, or Ramakrishna Mission Library close to our home, with its stern custodians in their saffron robes and stacks of books stretching into the horizon (I would go there ever since I could walk and it would always seem that there was another section round the corner). They were oases of peace, shielded from the crazy hubub of the outside world, yet transporting you to even crazier worlds - the skull-lined fence of Baba Yaga and her hut spinning on one chicken leg, the wondrous slide of the Magic Faraway Tree, the childrens' room where the magic Wishing Chair sat silently before flying off to some bizarre world, the millions of adventures of the Famous Five, Secret Seven, Hardy Boys, Three Investigators and so many more, the nonsensical stories of Bimbo and Topsy, the schoolboy pranks of William, the bumbling mistakes of Billy Bunter....the list could probably go on. As I grew, so did my choice in books, but the reason the ones I've mentioned strike a chord is because your imagination is most vivid when you're small - every detail is bursting with color and possibility and that amazement stays with you.

But I think I'm now losing that unbridled joy I used to have for reading. Don't get me wrong - I still love reading, but the joy has been tempered. The books I read are no longer fanciful tales to magic lands, and even if they are (LotR etc), I know it's not real. And of course, reading and analyzing a million technical papers is not the best way to endear someone to the written word.

I guess it was a sudden burst from the past - that excitement of getting your hands on a new book and the untold possibility that lay within. I guess that's why I picked up that book even though I knew I had to actually read "Poselets: Body Part Detectors Trained Using 3D Human Pose Annotations". So I ran a script I had written the previous night, checked to make sure it was gobbling up the videos correctly, and then for 15 beautiful minutes read "Tales from Arabia".

And in case you're wondering, the title of this post is actually one of the stories in that book - about 3 men who find a sheep with golden fleece. All 3 claim it and they go to the caliph to help them settle the issue. He asks each of them to tell a story, and the one with the best story wins. All 3 men tell tales which enrapture the audience, so the caliph says he can't decide and will take the sheep and give them compensation which they can then split. Before he does that, he asks each of them what they'll do with what they get. One says he will become a merchant, the other says he will open up a shop and the third says he will become an accountant. They all want to be rich, but need the capital, so they agree to give the sheep to the caliph. He takes the sheep but gives them sturdy sandals, coats and walking sticks. When they protest, he says they have a knack for telling beautiful tales and that they should travel Persia telling their stories rather than becoming merchants. It ends with the line "...and their lives were rich and content".