Imagine a time when there were no cell phones, no internet, not even a television in most of the houses – that is how my childhood was. Those days, apart from various games that we used to play, our major source of entertainment was reading books. We had many children’s publications in Malayalam such as Poompatta, Balarama, Muthassi, Malarvadi etc. There were English publications such as Tinkle, Phantom etc. Amar Chitra Katha was available in Malayalam and English. Since one could not afford buying all these books, we used to borrow the books from each other and read. Still, it was not possible to read all the books.
When I was in class seven, a group of us thought of starting a library. We wanted the library to have as many books as possible and remain self-sufficient. We didn’t want our parents to pay for the books. So, we came up with a unique idea, where we decided to lend books overnight for a small payment. I still remember, most of the magazines used to cost two rupees. We decided to charge 20 paise for overnight lending. Thus, once a book is lent 10 times, the library recovered the cost, which was used to buy the next volume. This arrangement was attractive for the borrowers too, because by paying one tenth of the cost of the book they were able to read the book. In other words, for the cost of one book, they could now read ten books!
Someone
suggested the name ‘Kings Books’ , which was acceptable to all. Salahuddin, one of my friends came forward to keep the books and operate
the library from his house. The next
issue was how to identify if a book belonged to the library. We decided to get a rubber stamp made in the
name of the library. I remember, on the
day when we got the rubber stamp made, in excitement, we rushed to the library and
took turns in stamping the books. Those
days, apart from children’s literature, many Malayalam weeklies were published
which carried stories, novels, articles etc.
These weeklies enjoyed huge readership, especially among women. So, in order to expand the operations of our
library, we decided to include these weeklies as well. Most of the women in our area, including our
mothers and aunts became the members of the library.
Initially we used to store the books in cardboard cartons. But as the number of books increased, we felt the need of proper storage space. But a bookshelf or cupboard was beyond our reach. Again a ‘jugaad’ idea came up. We had a vegetable vendor nearby who used to get supply of tomatoes in small boxed made of thin wooden boards. He used to sell these boxes as scrap. We bought few boxes from him. Using nails and clamps, we made a small cupboard out these boxes!
It all went well for almost a year. Suddenly one day, we heard the news that Salahuddin and his family were shifting their residence to a place far from our area. Now we had to look for a place to keep the books. Most of our houses neither had the space nor the permission from our parents to run the library. One of my friends whose father was working abroad suggested, ‘if we ask my mother’s permission, she won’t agree. Let us shift the library to my house when she goes out. Once the books are kept inside, I will convince her’. Accordingly, when his mother went out, we started shifting the books. Unfortunately, she was back in ten minutes. She flatly refused to let us store the books there. With great pain, we decided to close Kings Books. All the books were sold as scrap and the wooden cupboard was broken and thrown. Till recently, the rubber stamp of ‘Kings Books’ was in my drawer as a mark of those days.
Kings Books was in existence 35 years ago. Compared to those days, today there is a huge choice of avenues for entertainment and the reading habit has come down among the people. But, I am happy that Yashoda, a high school student and daughter of my friend at Kochi, started a library two years ago. Her primary objective is to inculcate reading habit among the children. The biggest attraction of her library is that the books are lent free of cost. At a time when people are reluctant to read, Yashoda’s library is pulling children back to reading. Her library has already become popular and has attracted lot of media attention. Let Yashoda’s library continue to flourish and spread the reading habit among children!
Here is a link to a report on Yashoda’s library:
Liberation from Library
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