bookmarks

i had my first bookmark when my cousin went to Florence and got me a marble-printed leather one -- many, many years ago. it was saved in a round fruit cake tin, along with shiny pebbles, old nails, bicycle bells, half erasers, key rings, blue locket and other prized treasures.
now i possess many and instead of hoarding, i have developed a queer OCD about bookmarks. i knew it, but never noticed how it has become, well, weird.
there are grades and types. i sort them according to two categories - personal, pretty ones that were gifted to me and the generic store ones. the latter are saved for pop lit - chetan bhagat to alistair mclean, i don't care which one i use. they are plain utilitarian.
the personal ones have an increasingly complex hierarchy. on top is the black one with cream brocade swatch that popeye gave me. for REAL books that i finish, staying up till 5 in the morning and bolting my door against the world through the day - i use this one. from warriors of rome to the book thief, half of a yellow sun to my mary renaults or dalrymples or nerudas or rushdies or ben okris and so on, i must have this one. the second place goes to the batik santiniketani one that the morning star gave me. it's meant for literature. so classics and some contemporary classics like say amitabh ghosh -- books that demand attention in equal measures for entertainment get this bookmark.
there is a third that another friend gave me -- a bamboo one with a tiny ceramic doll on top. this is my back up. i didn't quite realise that till the other day. i had a chunk of time to kill in another city and then in the airport. so i bought the purple hibiscus. then as i sipped my milkshake and turned to the first page, i slipped my hand in my backpack and fished this bamboo bookmark out to replace the store one. THEN i started reading.
of course, then there are author-specific ones, genre-specific ones and a separate set for bengali literature.
and i have begun to notice when they are switched around.
but the silver lining is that there are books that can't be bookmarked - it would be a sacrilege if you didn't finish in one go and even if you didn't, you'd automatically remember the very place you were in. fantasy, all of them. never mind the phrase silver lining.
sigh.
when you come visit me in padded cell, make sure you bring a new bookmark along with the new book, flowers, lip balm and chocolate.