Reading Glasses

Library is like an old dying relative. A relative who you are fond of but haven’t visited in a long time. A relative who has such fond memories and recollections of you growing up. A relative whose death won’t affect you that much.

Libraries have been such an important part of my life while growing up. It started during school. My school used to have a special period for library where we were required to exchange books. Though quite small, it was instrumental in shaping my reading. I used to borrow all kinds of books right from Grimm’s fairy tales to Nancy Drew & Hardy Boys.

My father is a member of the Rotary Club of Mumbai, Kandivali – West, and they started a library in Kandivali close to the station, back in early 2000s. Since school library was a little restricted, my friends and I became members of this library. I must be in 6^th or 7^th standard, when I started reading Tintin comics, Secret Seven, Harry Potter and so on.

It was so easy back then to just hop on to my cycle and exchange the book I had just finished reading. I distinctly remember, the librarian scolding us for borrowing the same books again and again. Unfortunately, after a few years the library had to shut down as they didn’t have a lot of members. My sister and I purchased a lot of books from there – especially Tintin & Harry Potter when it went on sale.

Below are the pictures of the library cards and how often we kept borrowing these books.

Soon after that we grew up, and new form of librarians came into being the “bookwallahs”. These guys were the best, we had to pay a deposit of Rs. 100 and they charged Rs. 20 as a reading charge for any book. I used to depend on these guys a lot during college. It was then when I expanded my reading to Sidney Sheldon, Daniel Steel, Nora Roberts, Jackie Collins, Twilight and so on. This was the time when book piracy was very high. Little did I know, that these bookwallahs were selling pirated books. I was pretty much content with this deal. Being a student, buying these books was out of question.

During my graduation and post-graduation, I started reading literary books which were more or less difficult to find in libraries. Nobody had heard of Ahdaf Soueiff or Naquib Mahfouz. Even the Mumbai University library had limited options in Literature. This was the time when I started buying books. In a way, started building my own collection.

Libraries were already fading out of the picture. There are no libraries in my vicinity. It is astonishing and sad because people born in this generation will never experience the things we did.

Do you have any fond memories of visiting your local library? Please feel free to share those with me.

Happy Reading!