ON LOCAL LIBRARIES

 Talking of books, again (do we ever stop?), while every major city has its USIS and British Council libraries, the greatest pleasure that bound us all together was the local library. You know, which was just about within walking distance from home, the one had something for every age group in the family.

Which was teeny-tiny with perhaps just about enough room to turn around rather than crawl out backwards. 

Which was dusty and musty, where the books were so tightly packed on the shelf that you had to pull out two or three at a time. Where you wanted to get to the books first, before their spines cracked and they fell apart.

Where the owner had a record of every book you had ever read in all the 15 years you had been a member. Who knew who had borrowed the book you desperately wanted. Who kept an eagle eye on you and wouldn’t let you borrow books your parents forbade you to bring home.

Who when you go even 15 years later instantly recognizes you. Who still keeps your membership current and knows your membership page number. And suggests what authors you should have moved on to since the last time you borrowed a book. And doesn’t hesitate to dun you for the book you lost 20 years ago. Or will return the Rs. 2 which he owed you from way back when.

All of us in major metros have grown with such a library even as the city grew around it. In Madras it was Easwari Lending Library. An institution in itself.

By the time I could make my way to Easwari, I had ‘graduated’ from Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie to Romances. Mills and Boon, as they were then called, was much in demand but I was also an indiscriminate reader, willing to peruse almost anything printed. No one commented adversely on reading habits, though my father was totally unappreciative of my literary taste; he insisted on picking up my M&B only with a hanky so as not to pollute himself with ‘rubbish.’

Mr. Palani, the founder-owner, is a fairly short, thin man who ruled his library with a rod of iron. We were allowed to borrow only 10 titles at a time. Actually, we began with five. When Mr. Palani deemed us sufficiently trustworthy to return the books in time and in good condition, he upped the limit to 10.

Ooof. The relief!

Even that was insufficient for me. I was a fairly fast reader, devouring one or two books on a weekday and few more over the weekend, and ran through the new books in short order. Fortunately, there were a couple of other patrons of Easwari who stepped up. My friend Bharati’s mother, for instance, was another avid reader of M&B who would sub-lend me her borrowed books, keeping me well supplied. The only provisos were that I returned them safely to Easwari before the due date to avoid late fees, and in time to enable them to borrow a fresh lot without hitting the max ceiling.

The reading was an all-absorbing enchantment and thrill but returning the enormous number of books threw up many issues. First of all was the timing since I had to juggle the deadlines of three other patrons apart from my own. Sitting up nights to finish a book was standard practice, which my family tolerated. It also required late-evening runs to the library, not a practice my family approved of.

Returning 15 to 20 books at a time to the library, which was not on a bus route, involved huge, heavy bags. They were special trips from home, not combined with other errands in the area or on the way back from college. Definitely not the last as the books would have been seized upon by various friends to be read between the pages of the English textbook in Mrs. John’s class probably, not to be seen again for a couple of days, well past the due date.

Secondly, I had to look sharp to avoid paying unnecessary late fees. Palani was not above pulling a fast one on me, slyly failing to cancel books I had returned. Fortunately, my prodigious memory served me well and I countered by tracing them back on the shelves or to my friends who had borrowed it after me.

My nephew Rama, as he is now known, shares my mania for books. When he was old enough to read, I insisted that he earn his privilege of a library visit by walking to it. The five-year-old would trudge 1.5 km through the hot, humid evening to choose books that were first vetted by me and then by Palani. We would get a ride back if the book load was too heavy or it was much too late in the evening.

Even before Easwari was the Children’s Club mobile library. In my days, the club membership consisted of friends and family who lived within a 10-minute walk of each other. The club was run by my extended family who called the shots on all details of the library service.

Every Saturday, Munuswamy would ride the library van around the neighborhood (and no, that is not his picture and the van was a dull gray!) and we’d fall on it like vultures, ready to pick it clean. We were each allowed one or two books and one magazine, a paltry number. Ritakka, my cousin, as always came to my rescue, allowing me to appropriate her slot, setting a custom that I later took for granted. I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t have first choice every week because, of course, I was the most avid reader in our group, I whined. But more dispassionate heads made sure each household was fairly served in the rota system. And Munuswamy had strict instructions not to permit any reservations, so I had to wait my turn for a coveted book. We were strictly not allowed to trade across households, even those next door or just across the road, a decision easily enforced since the chief librarian, invariably an aunt or an older cousin, kept informal tabs on our weekly reading list.

I read my first Enid Blytons here, stories about Amelia Jane and pixies and elves. And Highlights with its puzzles, mazes and  puns, also my first introduction to crosswords, a passion that still rules me. We couldn’t colour the pictures, of course, but traced the maze or did the crossword in pencil lightly enough to erase it without a mark.

In total contrast was the school library. With musty books run by a dragon who didn’t seem to have any interest in reading and had no idea who the passionate readers in a class were. But the library did have books and authors I couldn’t find anywhere else, probably because they were so dated – the Chalet school series, Angela Brazil and the Dimsey books. And I found classmates and friends who were non-readers very willing to check out books for me, so it wasn’t a total loss.

Maybe now that I am back in Chennai, perhaps Easwari beckons, though it looks pretty hifi. Or payback time in the Children’s Club library, to (re)introduce its membership to the delights of a local library?