In 1981-82 , during my student days at Khalsa College, Amritsar, I borrowed from the Agricultural Library the book Plants and Environment: A Textbook of Plant Autecology. At that time, I could scarcely have imagined that this ordinary library volume would embark upon a remarkable forty-five-year journey before finally returning to its rightful institutional home.
During my stay at the Jind Hostel, the book was taken from me by one of my classmates. As the final examinations approached, I made every effort to trace the volume, but unfortunately it could not be recovered. Since the book was the property of the College Library and I was required to obtain my No Objection Certificate (NOC), I deposited an amount equivalent to three times the price of the book as compensation. Having fulfilled the financial obligation, I eventually completed my studies and left Khalsa College in 1982, returning thereafter to my native village in Kashmir.
Nearly eight years later, quite unexpectedly, the same classmate returned the book to me. By then, however, the matter had long receded into the background of my life. I placed the volume in my personal home library, where it became one among approximately 3,000 books accumulated over the years. Like many books in a large scholarly collection, it gradually disappeared from immediate view, resting quietly among countless other volumes.
Then, several months ago, while examining and rearranging my collection, I unexpectedly rediscovered this long-lost book. Holding it once again after so many decades brought back vivid memories of my student life at Khalsa College, Amritsar, the Jind Hostel, my examinations, and the circumstances surrounding its disappearance.
The discovery also awakened a strong sense of academic responsibility. Although I had compensated the College financially more than four decades earlier, I felt that the physical book itself properly belonged to the institution whose library had originally entrusted it to me. A library book is not merely a printed object; it is part of an institution’s intellectual heritage, preserved for successive generations of students, teachers, and researchers.
I therefore decided that the book should return to its original home. After remaining in my personal library for nearly forty-five years, this volume of Plants and Environment: A Textbook of Plant Autecology is now being sent by registered post to the Principal, Khalsa College, Amritsar, with a request that it be restored to the Agricultural Department Library from which I had borrowed it in 1981.
Thus, a book that left the shelves of Khalsa College as part of my academic life in 1981 is finally finding its way back in 2026. Its journey—from the Agricultural Library to the Jind Hostel, from there into the uncertainty of a classmate’s possession, then to my village home in Kashmir, and finally back to Khalsa College—spans nearly half a century.
For me, this is more than the return of an old textbook. It is a small but meaningful act of gratitude towards my alma mater and a reaffirmation of the principle that books entrusted to educational institutions carry a responsibility that extends beyond the individual reader. After forty-five years, the volume has completed its long journey home.
A book may remain silent for decades, but it never loses its history. This book has now returned to the institution where its story with me began
