Know Your City: The silent reading phenomenon taking Bengaluru and India by storm
The brains behind Cubbon Reads are mobile entrepreneur Harsh Snehanshu and marketing professional and baker Shruti Sah
4 min read
Unlike most book clubs, there are no agreed-upon reading lists. The event is silent for the most part, with participants speaking in undertones to avoid disturbing others. (Express Photo by Jithendra M) Not too far from the horseback statue of Sir Mark Cubbon in Cubbon Park is a large pipal tree. Come to the gardens surrounding it on a Saturday morning, and a host of people are spread out on mats and blankets – reading, writing, working on laptops, painting or even crocheting. This phenomenon – Cubbon Reads – has now grown to a group of hundreds. But in December last year, it started with just its two founders, cycling in from Indira Nagar for a quiet read.
The brains behind Cubbon Reads are mobile entrepreneur Harsh Snehanshu and marketing professional and baker Shruti Sah. (Express Photo by Jithendra M)
Unlike most book clubs, there are no agreed-upon reading lists. The event is silent for the most part, with participants speaking in undertones to avoid disturbing others. There is not even any sort of social media group or list of members – just the shared experience of reading in silence, capped off by a group photo in the afternoon along with a stack of all the books brought by readers.
The brains behind Cubbon Reads are mobile entrepreneur Harsh Snehanshu and marketing professional and baker Shruti Sah. Harsh said, “We never thought it would become something this big. It was just a nice ritual we had, and we posted about it on Instagram. A few people mentioned that they would like to join. It was very small in the beginning – there were five people in the first session and only one in the third.” Slowly, the idea began to spread.
Shruti said, “By the 15th meeting, about 50 people had come. There are no real demographics here – once there was a 70-year-old man sitting under a tree and reading, and another time a mother had brought her one-year-old child to read out children’s books.”
Cubbon Reads goes side by side with Cubbon Paints. (Express Photo by Jithendra M)
Harsh further said, “We have stopped counting the number of people who come. At the peak, it was somewhere around 600 people. I think the reason why it has become so popular is that silence is mandated. That removes the anxiety of socialisation and it is really helpful for introverts. But towards the end, as people stack up the books near the tree, people start interacting and even make some friends. People stay even afterward and keep reading.”
Cubbon Reads goes side by side with Cubbon Paints. Professional artist Ambarish, who curates Cubbon Paints, said: “I used to be a documentary photographer. I took up art after suffering a brain haemorrhage that left me unable to move properly for two years… I used to paint in different parts of Cubbon Park and got to know about Harsh and Shruti’s initiative. Now there is a large number of painters alongside the many people reading.” The local dogs have also made themselves at home – one takes a mid-morning nap on Ambarish’s blanket as he paints beneath a tree.
Cubbon Reads has spread rapidly as a concept since it started this year, with even the prime minister taking note of it on Twitter. In Bengaluru alone, it is one of six such reading groups – with the others operating in Lalbagh, Whitefield, HSR Layout, Yelahanka, and the Sankey area. There are 56 such chapters, with 15 outside the country.
If visitors would like to join the group at Cubbon Reads, they can find the exact location displayed on the Instagram account of Cubbon Reads. The event is held every Saturday from 9.30 am to 2 pm.
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