[This volume of SouthSide Chatter was distributed on 19/08/2023.]
Hello Friend,
Here we are to talk with you again. We are eagerly waiting to show you some snaps we took while our books (Speaking Sandals, East Wind, and Komuram Bheem) were getting printed.
We are reminded of a dialogue from the movie Hidden Figures:
"Somewhere down the line, a human being’s going to have to push the buttons…"
It was the first time that youngsters working with us visited the printing press. Seeing the work that goes on in the printing press was an eye-opener to them. Institutions like factories, industries and printing presses sound like they run by themselves through automated machines, especially with the advent of advanced modern technology.
We think that all workers need to do these days is to keep the machines running; many of us are unaware of what actually goes on in these sites. We seem to think that all workers do is just push buttons and the machines do all the work.
Here's a short one-minute video of our visit to the Press, do take a look!
But as we found out, the workers here do not just push buttons, despite the fact that machines do so much work that is not possible for humans to do, there is still a lot of manual physical labour involved in printing books from unloading heavy cartons and carrying it to a place where it is safely preserved, lifting heavy paper bundles and taking them to the machines, tying bundles and carrying them. There are a whole range of back-breaking physical activities involved which are hard to even enumerate here. All the printer-workers are very hospitable and friendly and we get deeply positive vibes when we go there. In spite of being neck deep in their work, they constantly look out to us to see if we need anything, if they can help us in any way amidst their work.
Not just authors, translators and editors and other creative people - these people are also those who materialise in the real sense our ideas, thoughts and stories into concrete form of books.
Every trip to the printing press is a bliss, the sound of the machines running while printing, the atmosphere filled with the smell of newly printed books and especially being around the workers seeing their affectionate smiles warms our hearts and gets us thinking how undervalued their labour is.
So, Yes, They too are the Makers of Uniquely Portable Magic in the true sense.
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