Reading On8230;

Eighteen-year-old Sameer Qureshi,who lives in the Nai Sadak area of Chandni Chowk,comes to read newspapers here every day. I like the peace and quiet the library offers. No one bothers you as long as you maintain silence and keep to yourself, he says. Qureshi is here today with his textbooks,as he needs to study for an exam.

In the large,air-conditioned rooms,scores of students are huddled over their textbooks or newspapers. We subscribe to over 31 newspapers and 72 periodicals in English,Hindi and Punjabi, says Madhukar Rao,the chief librarian.

Rao,who has been working here since 1973,has seen the library change over the years. In the earlier years,most of our readers were pensioners and office-goers. Now,our members are mostly students who are looking for a quiet place to study, he says. But after the trifurcation of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi earlier this year,the library now faces the danger of closing down,with all the three municipalities being ambiguous about adopting it and providing financial assistance.

The two-storey building has sections divided according to language and genre of the books. It stocks around 1,70,000 books,of which at least 8,000 books are considered rare,says Rao. Some of the rare books include Relation of Some Years 1634 by Travaile Begvenne,Satyarth Prakash 1881 by Swami Dayanand Saraswati,and a copy of the Mahabharata in Persian by Abul Faizi. We also have verses of the Quran written by Aurangzeb with their Hindi translation, says Rao,adding,This is not only a library,but also a heritage monument.

The library was formerly known as Lawrence Institute Library,but in 1912,after Viceroy Lord Hardinge escaped a bomb attack while passing through Chandni Chowk on an elephant,the library was shifted to a larger building to commemorate his survival and was subsequently renamed after him. Interestingly,after Independence,it was again renamed Hardayal Library after Lala Hardayal who had led the bomb attack on Lord Hardinge.

Currently,the Hardayal Municipal Library has 31 branches most of which are only reading rooms in Delhi. The library has been renovated over the last few years. For example,with collaboration with the Indian Chartered Accountants of India,the library has got new furniture,painted walls and computers. We want to make microfilms of the rare volumes,add more computers and install audio-visual aid. But it all depends on the availability of funds, says Rao with a sigh.