ਚਿੱਠੀ-ਪੱਤਰ | ਚੇਤ 546 - Newsletter | Mar 2014
"Panjab Digital Library" info@panjabdigilib.org
"There is no scent so pleasant to my nostrils as that faint,subtle reek which comes from an ancient book.
        - Arthur Conan Doyl.
  What is so wonderful about an ancient book? Is this the age of its pages, its content, or its worth due to the times it has endured, or is this its probability of having been touched by the hands and having been scanned by the eyes of some people of significance who lived centuries before us, or is it the feel that it gives to our senses while walking through the aisles between bookcases inside a library ? For different people, the reasons of this association with the ancient can vary.
Sometimes the article of antiquity itself rises to a scriptural level due to its connection with the older times and its value is understood and taken full-heartedly by people in large. But then there are several articles of utmost substance which remain untouched for decades and centuries.
Walking hand-in-hand with time, sometimes trying to run ahead of it, man loses this connection with the ancient.
The limitation of lifespan seems to further limit the man's possibility to be in touch with the antiquity.
One should take some time off one's rush hours and have a date with the antiquity by blowing off the dust from the covers and sensing the scent of the articles of heritage, trying to hear the sound of the written words, see the historicity in your hands, and live the magic of the timeless.