The fine art of photocopying

I really did not know that there was artistry involved in photocopying until I met ManMohan Singh. No, not our honourable Prime Minister, this guy is a delivery boy working with a photocopier somewhere in the North Campus of Delhi University. I saw him struggling near the lift in our block of flats, with a few massive blocks of A4 sheets neatly spiralled.

‘That’s quite a bit of photocopying,’ I asked in Hindi. Obviously, I presumed he would not understand if I said something in English. But he surprised me by answering in the language I was trying to avoid.

With pride in his voice, he informed me that they were four complete books written by ‘foreign authors’. ‘Our charges are less,’ he added as some sort of a sales pitch, ‘and we make home deliveries. I also have a catalogue of books that we can manage. You can order from that list also. Here is my card. I am Man Mohan.’

‘Quite a neat arrangement,’ I mumbled and then flipped through one of those photocopied books. Yes, it was done rather well, with no pages upside down and with no margins going in a slant that may need a reader to change his posture as Yogis do.

He probably read my mind because he said, ‘Error free, sir. Two-side printing. No unreadable part and no smudges.’ He was silent for a while as the liftman was there telling me that there will be some minutes before the lift was at the ground floor as some vital repairs were going on.

I handed the photocopied books back to Man Mohan, saying, ‘Good job. Keep it up. You guys are artists in a way.’

Why did I call a mere photocopier assistant an artist? Is this what the world has come to? Every day we keep discussing piracy on blogs, in newspaper articles, and we have so many discussions and debates on how to perceive them and how to lessen their terror on the creative world… so why did I actually praise someone who is euphemistically a pirate!

I told myself that it was probably because the job was executed well… and a job well done needs to be praised. ‘Hey! You’re getting your priorities wrong… all wrong,’ said a voice within me, ‘would you go and praise a murderer who cuts up his victim artistically?’

Phew! My mind was now twisting and churning my insides and I was actually uncomfortable. Just then I saw my wife walking in to the lift lobby… and as there was still time for the lift to get operational, we decided to go for a short drive. I told her all about my disconcerting words and action and asked her what she thought about it.

‘It is elementary,’ she said, ‘photocopying books is just piracy and cannot and should not be accepted. Praising a good photocopying is acceptable but surely not if piracy is snaking through it.’

Isn’t it strange how we humans have this innate talent to convert every good thing into an embodiment of something that is glistening with evil intent! A simple photocopying suddenly becomes draconian the moment you mix-n-match it with any form of illegality.

I still wanted to defend this indefensible action and said, ‘Good books are expensive and sometimes not easily available. What other alternative do serious and discerning students have with them?’ She told me that the argument was lame and that photocopied books, even the nicely photocopied ones, were as unreadable as the pirated works that one sees being sold by the pavement book-sellers of Connaught Place and Daryaganj in Delhi.

‘Getting entire books photocopied for study is a miserable façade adopted by students who actually spend more time bunking classes,’ she added, and then went on, ‘such students convince themselves that hoarding text will somehow make them read and grasp all of it in the off-days between two exams.’

We knew this was true. We knew of the strange case of an Indian student (whom we met while we were there at the University of York) who was obsessed with getting recipes printed for himself with a notion that he will read and become a great chef someday. He was a student of statistics and was far away from a future in culinary expertise and so we were taken aback to discover in his room a ten foot tall stack of printed sheets with probably all the recipes in the world! Specky smiled at me when I recounted this incident, and said, ‘So you see, we are the great hoarders of the world!’

‘So this penchant with collecting leads us getting expensive books photocopied. It isn’t our desire to read for knowledge.’

‘It certainly isn’t,’ she replied emphatically, ‘how much research do you see getting done in our universities? All that this photocopy generation wants is to know enough to pass. The tomes of photocopied paper are for effect!’

Well, this was like taking the harangue a bit too far, but it really did not seem wrong either. A short trip to any college anywhere will reveal the presence of an uncannily large number of photocopiers in the area. A closer scrutiny will tell you how organised they all are and with what impunity they are all photocopying entire books! Should there be a defence for this open form of piracy? I don’t think so… and no wonder our legal system is now on the verge of waking up.

Monica Verma, a blogger, has written in her post: ‘Those who don’t know, Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press and Taylor & Francis have filed a case in a Delhi court accusing Delhi University and Photocopiers of infringing Copyright laws. This case may come as a rude shock to the students but truth is that the way things work in DU and any other university in India is actually illegal. Generally students here refrain from buying books which are their required readings for a subject and go the cheaper way by getting that part photocopied.’ She goes on defend the students by saying they need the texts from these expensive books and, though illegal, this action should not be considered wrong.

I think what Monica is trying to make us believe is sheer nonsense. However, the menace is quite real and needs real answers and not the fiction of yet another court case being dragged on for eons!

‘The problem of our students is quite real,’ I said, ‘and a solution is surely needed.’ I told my wife that publishers can always debate and decide to have a ‘buy a chapter’ scheme for students where only relevant portions can be ordered at a fraction of the original cost. I did add that low cost editions or expensive books on EMI can also be offered.

My wife looked at me and said, ‘I think low cost editions are already there. But what they can add are ebook versions. These can then be offered at a fraction of the cost as marketing and selling them bypasses a lot of marketing expenses.’

‘Sounds good,’ I replied, ‘though then they’ll probably need to develop special digital registration and keys to make sure that the same ebook isn’t passed on from one student to another for free!’

We left the discussion there as we were back by then, the lift was operational, the photocopier artist had probably left, and we were tired…

2012_09_17_The Education Post_The fine art of photocopying

Arvind Passey
Written on 13 September 2012
Published in ‘The Education Post’ dated 17 September 2012