AN elderly man, his hands trembling not in fear but in anguish, desperately held the arm of an agitated youth, entreating him with quiet dignity: “Please don’t destroy the books. Come here, have a look at them.” Indifferent to this humane appeal, the youth and his cohort brazenly tore down the display counter, hurling volumes into the dust of the road. These were not merely texts of Marx, Engels, and Lenin, but literary masterpieces of Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, trampled underfoot in the dirt.