Welcome To Nerdistan

What Is Quinsy? (and Other Important Questions)

- Sandip Roy

I confess I once owned a Vikas General Knowledge book, though I have forgotten which volume it was. But I remember a dog-eared paperback filled with all kinds of facts, presented with pedantic dullness. I studied the book not because I was planning on taking the IAS exam, but because I liked knowing the capitals of obscure countries. It was part of what we called GK, or general knowledge. Possessing GK was the nerd’s version of a 56-inch chest. You stored strange facts in your head and pulled them out at the right moment to impress someone. It’s hard to do that any more with the same flourish. What’s the point of memorising anything when you can just Google it?

My great ambition in life was to own the complete Encyclopaedia Britannica. Every year, at the Kolkata Book Fair, we made a ritual pilgrimage to the Britannica stall and stared longingly at those hardbound volumes, neatly stacked next to each other, like the books in my grandfather’s law library. I imagined the fabulous worlds that were trapped between those covers – outer space, underwater, the African savannah, medieval Europe and so much more. Every year we mulled over investing in the entire set. I cannot remember how much it cost, but in the end, we always balked and made do with the newest volume of Vikas General Knowledge books.