Once in a while, AI does something worthwhile (barring the extra cobwebs 🙂 )!
​The one thing I didn’t have growing up in Bhopal was the USA’s fantastic public library system. My city had one ancient library, a relic of colonial times, named, of course, “The British Library”. The collection was old and outdated, and was too far to visit on a regular basis. But the library that became my gateway to world literature was a tiny Bengali library attached to a Kali Bari. My mom and I shared a ravenous appetite for books and reading, and I used to so eagerly look forward to my visits.
The library was small but filled with books from floor to ceiling. The librarians were extremely well-read, friendly, and warm. It also didn’t hurt that Bengali writers were some of the finest translators of famous works. In some of the cases, when I finally read the original texts, the translation actually seemed better!
So the other day, on a whim, I described my tiny Bengali library to AI, and I was shocked by how accurately it captured it. Except for the unnecessary cobwebs that it decided to add, this is exactly how I remember my source of all reading adventures. The image literally made me emotional and brought back the delightful childhood memories.
