La Muselivre

Souhaitons bonjour au nouveau membre de notre club très fermé (dont je suis membre depuis très longtemps déjà) : The Babu

Made myself a promise before I got to Bombay: "Babu," I sez, "you may do many things in Bombay. You may get onto the wrong trains (did that). You may fall out of a taxi in Bandra (ditto). You may even dance on tables (on the to-do list) singing obscene Bengali songs (did that already). But promise me you will not buy more books. Delhi has a Crossword, a Bookshop, a Bookworm, a Sunday bazaar, a... it has books, okay? What you have on the other hand is four cartons of books, unpacked, because there are no cupboards to put them into. Your last house guest left when you suggested he might want to exchange the pullout divan for a couch built on books (imagine a pillow constructed of Murakami, Joyce, Gibson, Proulx, with a little Jasper Fforde and George Macdonald Fraser added for padding). Ergo, no books. Please?" [...]
What's happening here has more in common with addiction than dry literary appreciation: he has joined the ranks of People Who Can't Help Buying Books. If they have money--anyone's money--and they pass a bookstore, they cannot help themselves