A house for books

The dinner hosted by the Sharjah Children Reading Festival at the library had us — authors and illustrators who had come from different parts of the world — confused initially. It seemed to be an odd choice of venue for dinner. The libraries that I was used to were often musty and dusty and certainly not a place where one could expect to enjoy a meal or have one in the first place.

Our doubts were put to rest when we walked inside. The carpeted floors, the gleaming dome that arched above us magnificently, the different floors packed with books — it took me some time to take it all in. When we finished the starters, the hosts, a group of young Arab men and women, took us on a tour of the library. We walked into the children’s section, a large room stocked with books in English and Arabic. Then, we walked up to the two floors which housed a good number of books arranged neatly on shelves on many different themes.

After taking in the huge curving staircase, the sheer expanse of the library and the scale of the building, we came back downstairs and continued with our dinner. An artist wearing traditional robes played the trumpet and provided live entertainment as we settled back at the tables. It was surreal and fabulous at the same time. When it was all over, we returned to the hotel, knowing that we had just experienced something unique.

I grew up in Bengaluru at a time when there was no internet. Libraries opened up my world. Books were the windows that allowed us to glimpse the world and beyond.

At first, it was only the one in school. We were allowed to take a book every week under the gimlet eye of our matronly librarian who wouldn’t let us take anything remotely unsavoury or, well, expensive. Then, for holiday homework, I went to the city’s central library with a friend and got lost amid all the dust and rows upon rows of books, some in Kannada and some in English. We found the book that we needed — an encyclopaedia to get information about either the Masais of Kenya or orchard farming in the Mediterranean — projects we were supposed to work on during our summer holidays.

For another project, I managed to get into the British Council library, awed and worried about never being able to come here again. I remember that being my most prominent thought at that time and not whether I would find anything noteworthy for the project.

Later on, in college, the library became the place where we did our detentions, and so, it lost its appeal. Maybe, it also had to do with how we were sadly not allowed near the fiction shelves.

My love for libraries goes back to my childhood when my brother and I decided to set up our own library with our meagre collection of books. It was, sadly, a failed enterprise because we lived in an independent house and we didn’t know anyone who wanted to come and borrow our books. Looking back, I’m not even sure I remember why we wanted to do this. Maybe, we were trying to come up with our version of a book exchange but it petered out, like many of our other childhood experiments.

When I was in Class IX, my mother and I discovered a government-run library near our house. We were both delighted but my mother was especially thrilled because the library stocked Urdu novels, too. We signed up — it was ridiculously cheap — and we started perusing books to take back home. Despite it being quite close by, for some reason best known to her, my mother had insisted on taking us there in her trusty Maruti 800. It seemed fortuitous later when after we’d picked up some books and were on our way back, it started raining and the car stalled in the middle of the road.

I remember stepping out of the car and getting drenched immediately as I attempted to push it, all the while wondering why they made it look so easy and enjoyable in the movies. We were not even 50 m away from home, yet we couldn’t possibly abandon the car in the middle of the road. Even as we struggled to get the car started, I remember thinking about the books that were safe and dry inside the car, the ones I’d go back home with and read once I’d changed into dry clothes and curled up on the sofa. That feeling of imminent pleasure is elusive today and despite having books at my disposal whenever I want, I miss the delicious silence of libraries where everyone would settle down and read quietly.