संस्कृते विश्वासटिप्पन्यः

Think yourself a Zen person? Visit one of these manuscript libraries to unlock unknown levels of blinding rage 🧵from experience. https://t.co/63gmcgzty1

Clerk asks for letter in triplicate from HoD attested by gazetted officer. You bring it back next day, but library unofficially shuts down on Tuesdays and Thursdays. You are only allowed to photograph 20% of the manuscript. Research requires whole thing? Too bad, you have to copy it by hand.

You travel 100s of km, only to be told that the library is involved in legal dispute and sealed “by the authorities.”

You twiddle thumbs for 4 hrs in lobby, while those based abroad (like me) are given instant darshan.

You finally manage to get in, but discover they’ve messed up the shelving. Your stuff is lost.

You manage to get in, but find your manuscript is missing: stolen, destroyed or sold (!)

Librarian denies you access because some knowledge is secret and not meant to be shared willy-nilly.

Your library has been digitised, luckily. All stored in 100s of DVDs. They pop in a DVD to copy the file, and discover its now corrupt after 10 years. You go back home sad.