Shyam Sundar Vattam
Mysuru
The City of Mysuru has got a new initiative ‘Little Free Libraries’ thanks to TASK Educational, Charitable and Welfare Trust. This novel idea is open to all age groups. It operates on “Take a book, Leave a Book” concept. The idea behind it to encourage the reading habits among the people. In a tete Prof S.S.M.Hacque, president of TASK, spoke to Shyam Sundar Vattam of City Highlights on the concept and the plans. Here are the excerpts
CH: Please share some details regarding your initiative?
Prof Hacque: The Little Free Library project is the idea where you take a book and leave a book. It’s a public box. It’s set outside in the public where the public has access to free books. It’s not a borrow and lending library as such. You don’t have to bring the book back. So, it’s not returning a book as much as you can leave a book in its place that you think people might like to read or something you just want to give away. It works with community support. We don’t really control what goes inside the boxes as much as we can only put what is donated. The idea is kind of a liberal exchange of books, granting access to people who don’t usually get access to books. And it’s usually, at least in our case, it’s sort of concentrated on the idea of giving access to books and knowledge.
CH: what made you to start this initiative?
Prof Hacque: I was part of the Little Free Library community back in Leeds when I was working there. And, while I was here on a break, I figured I might as well, try something like that over here. I’ve grown up with love of books and I have a personal library of my own that I love sharing. And having come back, it was really nice to sort of see the book community grow in Mysore. I was back after like about five years, perhaps. And, I was surprised to see that there was a vast community and a growing community around books and readers with books. I felt like this was a program that sort of sits right in the heart of Mysore, given that there’s a rich intellectual heritage, uh, in Mysore with the university and the other sort of institutions around. As well as the fact that there’s been so many laureates, uh, coming out of the city. Concerns were that the readership has dwindled over a period of time. That’s what usually you hear from people, nobody reads books these days. But, this was sort of, I mean, this still is a bit of an experiment in terms of we are seeing a lot of people engaged just because it’s a novel idea. People are intrigued. It is turning heads while they’re passing by it. Even though perhaps they would have probably not thought of going to a public library or a lending library to go and take books, now feel like they can sort of grab something while they’re on a morning walk or just sort of getting somewhere, probably commuting, taking the bus, and they have to pass through that because it’s one of the bus routes. So, that’s also it’s, that’s pretty much what it’s around.
CH Where exactly you keep those books? You have any specific process?
Prof Hacque: The boxes, they have been, put in three locations. One is right outside my residence in Vijayanagar. One is at Tina’s Cafe in VV Mohalla. The other is in Books and Brews Library, in Gokulam,.so we started with two boxes, but then we were left with enough material to make the third. And we decided we’re going to sort of place them in a place which is privately owned but public facing where there’s a lot of crowd that sort of passes through, so that people can start using it. But at the same time, you know, sort of the idea needs to be tweaked to the Indian, crowd and Indian, uh, social ethics. So, we didn’t want to sort of transplant it from suburb in US right into India without sort of tweaking it and tailoring it to the Indian crowd. So what we did is was to place it in ownership of an individual or an institution, but one that is accessible to all. So they are very front facing. Like, they’re all facing the road. They’re on the footpath. They’re not inside someone’s property.
CH: But what kind of age that you’re planning to attract?
Prof Hacque: It’s for everyone, to be honest. I have seen kids to elderly all engaged with the same sort of enthusiasm. We didn’t have an age in mind as much as what we had in mind was, people who don’t have access. In terms of, so you have kids who probably don’t get to buy the books that they probably want to. And also there are there’s a common school right behind my house, we were hoping that it approaches kids and young adults. But I have seen enthusiasm with the same within, the elderly as well. And this very morning, there was an elderly woman who was going on a walk and she was like, hey, can I have a look? And she took a little book. Quite a lot of elderly in the neighborhood were also, uh, very happy at having, seen the box. And then they brought us some books as well. It’s been open for three days now and we’ve received almost, about 100, 150 books just within my neighborhood alone from people of all ages and of all kinds.
CH: What kind of books people usually pick up? Whether it’s in English, Kannada, or which language?
Prof Hacque: Initially, it was mostly English because I was having trouble procuring Kannada titles. But I’ve. I think we’ve procured good amount of Kannada books as well now. I kept mentioning that to my neighbors and they were kind enough to sort of bring in a lot of Kannada titles as well. They are mostly fiction. There are a lot of young adult and kids’ books, like books from Roald Dahl or, you know, one of those, Wimpy Kid diaries, Enid Blyton, and stuff. It’s ranging from works just going to, you know, other local independent authors here in Kannada as well. There are again the books of RK Laxman.
CH: Presently, you have three boxes. What are your plans to expand all over the city?
Prof Hacque: Yes, we do have plans. Like I mentioned, this one is slightly a bit of an experiment. So, perhaps we will have a look at it of how this fares in about three to six months, observe what the crowd is like, what the response is like, how much do we have to plan for other contingencies. We definitely have plans of expanding it across the city. There are a lot of people who are interested to have it. But we do want to make sure that it is spread out across the city and not sort of concentrated in a few localities, certain just one sort of people.
CH: Why don’t you select some good more shopping malls in Mysuru?
Prof Hacque: Because you generate footfall, it will be more for the malls.I am of the belief that the idea should sit right at home where it is put. So, the thing is, I don’t have a lot of time. My full-time job is not running the NGO, but it was a bit of a side project. I am of the opinion that this should not be an idea that I have to go and sell it to people. Okay. This should be something that once I mention, they’re enthusiastic about it that they adopt it. That way, I can make sure that they are taking care of it as if they own it. Like, they have stakes in the project themselves. It doesn’t have to be something that, okay, if some NGO runs it, if gets the box, they’ll come take care of it, and it’s their responsibility. So, when that happens, it doesn’t become the community’s project. In the case with Tina and with the Gangana who runs the Books and Brews, I only happened to mention in passing and they were so enthusiastic about it. They said, we’ll take care of it. We will do the whole thing. We’ll stock the books. You don’t have to worry about it. And since I’m not here in Mysore for long, I was just on a brief holiday, so I figured, it just needs to be done in a manner that is, that people take care of it rather than it being some sort of a CSR sort of project that is being done.