Death of the Encyclopaedia Salesman

‘The only thing you’ve got in this world is what you can sell.’ Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman.

A few decades ago, if you paid a visit to a home with a modicum of house pride, you would unfailingly have found in their bookshelves or ornate glass cupboards, an entire line of leather-bound volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (EB). They would stand tall and proud alongside the Complete Works of Shakespeare, the Bhagavad Gita, The Oxford English Dictionary and possibly jostling alongside, some of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries and for light entertainment, at least half a dozen of P.G. Wodehouse’s best and brightest. The last couple of titles could easily be interchanged with Agatha Christie’s whodunnits and Erle Stanley Gardner’s Perry Mason courtroom dramas. Not forgetting the almost de rigueur Reader’s Digest Condensed Books, which were offered at a throwaway price if you were a subscriber to the RD. All of which do not preclude any other favourite of your choice, so long as we bear in mind that the Encyclopaedia Britannica was a must and consequently, irreplaceable.

Now here’s the thing. In my living memory, I do not recall ever having taken out a single volume of the EB series to bone up on the exact dimensions of the tallest mountain peak in the world, the deepest ocean bed, the biggest star in the firmament, the most poisonous, carnivorous plant in the Amazon jungles or for that matter, everybody’s favourite, the tallest and shortest humans ever to set foot on planet earth. The more arcane the information one sought, the more EB became your go-to source, not that one went to it much, if at all. That is just a very small sample of the enormous amounts of minutiae contained in the alphabetically arranged EB, hard bound volumes. Come to think of it, I cannot recall an occasion when my father, a professional banker, slid out one of the tomes to satisfy his curiosity on the question of which was the first bank in the world to go kaput and leave its customers tragically insolvent. The only time these volumes were ever taken out of their shelves, very carefully by my mother, was to blow the accumulated dust off the top of the books, open each volume right in the middle pages and slam them shut with a hefty ‘thwack’ to get rid of more dust. Place them all back diligently in the same order and her work was done. And dusted.

Which leads me to the inescapable conclusion that one displayed impressive volumes like the EB more for show than for any practical use. In our present digital age, this issue is purely academic, as internet searches allow us to discover, in a trice, the precise length of the Trans-Siberian Railway (down to the last decimal point) or the average number of quills to be found on an adult porcupine. Or fretful porpentine, as Shakespeare preferred to describe the prickly mammal. Clearly the Bard of Avon had studied the nervous mental state of the porpentine in some detail. What a man!

We now live in an age where FB rules and the EB is all but extinct, one with the dinosaur and the brontosaurus. If at all they have not been sold to the highest bidder at an antique auction sale, or conversely a ‘raddhiwalla,’ they can only be treated as museum pieces. As I have not visited a museum in ages, I have no means of knowing if the EB is preserved in mothballs at some such habitat. Perhaps I should visit a museum, if only I knew how and where to find one. When I punched in ‘museum’ on my GPS, it guided me to Museum Road in Bangalore which had a number of colleges, churches and commercial establishments. No sign of a museum anywhere. I am sure I will locate one in the near future with some diligent digital search. As to whether I will find a collector’s set of the Encyclopaedia Britannica there or not is a matter of conjecture. Incidentally, Amazon (not the jungle) offers amazing deals on all manner of encyclopaedias, including the Britannica. If you wait long enough, they might offer them free, delivery included, provided you have adequate space in your basement; if you have a basement. No takers reported so far.

When all is said and done, one’s heart goes out to the encyclopaedia salesman of yore. I doubt very much if such a specimen exists anywhere in the world today, but time was when the salesman peddling encyclopaedias was the stuff of legend and song, almost a time-worn cliché. Equally admired by his bosses and colleagues for his indefatigable spirit and courage in travelling around the countryside, knocking on doors in an often-futile effort to sell these voluminous tomes, he was also reviled by housewives who were the salesman’s primary target as he invariably dropped by when the husband was off to work, fearing grievous bodily harm – the salesman that is, not the husband. Selling encyclopaedias was also a favourite subject for lampooning in comic strips in print and on television shows. I recall a sketch from an old Monty Python show, which I have reworked in my own imagination from a sketchy memory, as I cannot recall the exact dialogue. It takes the theme to absurdist lengths, a Monty Python trademark, to make the point.

EB salesman (rings the doorbell and raises his voice) – ‘Good morning, madam.’

Housewife – ‘Who is it?’

EB salesman – ‘A burglar.’

Housewife – ‘A burglar, did you say?’

EB salesman – ‘Yes madam. If you would be so kind as to let me in, I will help myself to some of your valuables and scoot.’

Housewife – ‘How can I be sure you are a burglar? How can I be certain you haven’t come to sell encyclopaedias? I cannot stand the sight of door-to-door salesmen offering encyclopaedias at special discounts.’

EB salesman – ‘Cross my heart and hope to die, madam. I know nothing about encyclopaedias. All I want is to burgle your sweet home.’

Housewife – ‘Well that’s a relief. Why didn’t you say so in the first place? You had better come in then. Can I make you a nice cup of tea? I’ll just put the kettle on and you can help yourself to anything your heart desires. Don’t you have a bag or something to put all the swag in?’

EB salesman (very hesitantly) – ‘Actually madam, I am not a burglar at all. I have been lying through my teeth and you were right. Profuse apologies. Can I interest you in a luxury edition of the Encyclopeaedia Britannica? There is something there about the Desert Horned Viper that will make your hair stand on end. Please madam. Take pity. It is as much as my job is worth. As a free bonus, I can throw in the complete works of Jane Austen – the Reader’s Digest Condensed version, of course.’

Housewife (looks pityingly at the salesman) – ‘Tell you what young man, I will not report you to the police for coming into my home under false pretences. You will never be able to burgle a baby’s rattle from its pram. And I have no interest in learning about the Desert Horned Viper or, come to that, the Iwasaki’s Snail-Eater. If you like, I can tell you a thing or two about the Hainan Black Crested Gibbon, also known by its biological name, Nomascus Hainanus. Look, you look like a nice chap. Have this cup of tea and a biscuit and be off with you. I hate it when burglars walk in pretending to be encyclopaedia salesmen. Or was it the other way round? Only yesterday, I had a nice-looking chap claiming to be a serial rapist, only to learn after letting him in that he was selling encyclopaedias. You can never trust anyone these days.’

Truly, one’s heart goes out to the encyclopaedia salesman. World famous director Woody Allen summed it up rather well. ‘There are worse things in life than death. Have you ever spent an evening with an encyclopaedia salesman?’