My pen had been very heavy for obvious and non obvious reasons leading to a long gap of non-activity since my last post. A lot of things have happened since then - most that cause the heaviness of the pen and the feelings that drive them. Since most of the things I write on this blog are primarily 'whiny' in nature, I believe that I was waiting for a positive thing to write. And I found one such this last weekend.
After passing it several times and musing that I should visit it someday, yesterday I decided to visit the Anna Centennial Library in Kotturpuram, Chennai. It was an impromptu decision that has a lot of significance to me. To do some things that I wanted to without deliberating too much. This is one of the most impressive public buildings I have seen in India outside of New Delhi. And that too for a public library. We went to the section on English literature - fiction and non-fiction section, checked out some of the collections and sat there for a about 30 minutes reading and pondering the view that extends from the Bay of Bengal to the forest cover of Guindy National Park. The time I spent there was one of quietest I have had in Chennai. The only other locations in India, where I experienced that kind of silence was in Vivekananda Rock Memorial in Kanyakumari and the Bahai temple in Delhi. Admittedly, it was Sunday with only a fraction of the traffic outside, but the silence was almost deafening.
The library staff mentioned that they are still waiting for a proper online catalog and are in the process of doing it and I am not sure if checkout facility is available. The collection itself, at least the english fiction and non-fiction, seems to be a mixture of the must-read classics and a motley mix of random books including a Murakami diary - which is not really a book, but a diary with quotes from characters in his books. There was also a book on 100 places to have sex!! I hope a library was not one of them. My only hope as I was going through the library, impressed with every step, was that the new government does not do anything drastic and random as to convert this building to a ...museum or something. I certainly hope that the response to this library as a haven for book-lovers or scholars will keep it alive and people using it will be proud and conscientious and help maintain it that way.
I would strongly recommend that you visit this library, if you have not already.
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2 comments:
aah! so you are back again after what-seemed-like-an-almost-infinite-hiatus..(whats with my hyphens!!) Keep writing/purging 'pleezz'. Good for you and others around!
A library would feature in the list of top 100 places to do..... An entire episode of "Friends" was devoted to that.
Looks like that book was a donation. I certainly can't imagine a bureaucrat ordering that.
Sridhar
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