This is the fattest book in my home
Much older than me
I worry about what will become of it when I’m gone
Where will it live, who will have it rebound, who will save it

It contains a hundred and twenty-five thousand, five hundred and eighteen words
It has thousands of common Hindi words drawn from Urdu, Arabic, Persian, English
and other Indian languages 
Lots of words that were dead by the year 2009 have been put in here
in the hope that they might be revived

I cannot say what’s special about this dictionary 
The cover has been lost
Its three editors, publisher, and printer are all dead
The one who dreamed of building this dictionary
was dead before it was published
It rightly expresses the sentiment that its publication would soothe
the soul of that dreamer in heaven

It costs twenty rupees
which makes me think it was bought by my father
who was always tight for money
Possibly he bought it with money from the education department

They say my father found the names of all four children
in this very dictionary

There’s his signature on three of its pages
There must have been a couple more because 
the first few pages are missing
From this dictionary you can tell my father
liked to write M.A. and his full postal address after his signature

From one such address it was discovered that my village
which is now in district Sitamarhi 
was once in Muzaffarpur

Since the word rocket is not in this dictionary
one can hardly expect the word robot to be in here
Nevertheless, I use it and at times
when I can’t see it, I grow restless