I knew my Facebook friend Gajalakshmi Elangovan is a librarian in Delhi but didn't know her association with the National Library of India in Kolkata.
Before my Kolkata trip, she pinged me to say that Assistant Librarian Partha Sarathi Das is her friend and would be of help. I noted down the name and left. I decided to visit the library from what I knew: The most extensive Library in India (2.2 million collections), covered by the Delivery of Books and Newspapers (Public Libraries) Act, 1954 (Copies of ALL books, magazines, and newspapers printed in India are supposed to be sent to four libraries. Kolkata, Chennai Connemara, and one each in Mumbai and Delhi), and has a treasure collection from the Imperial library heritage.
I had a generous single afternoon on a rainy day in Kolkata as my free time, and I spent most of it inside the National Library.
The library's main building was the residence of the Governor General of India during colonial times. Partha Sarathi Das warmly welcomed me ("Gajalakshmi called to inform me about your visit!"). He gave me a guided tour of the extensive reading hall, the long rows of bookshelves, and the 'dummy lifts' in between.
To my pleasant surprise, the library was filled chiefly with youngsters.
I also went to the rare books section.
Each rare book was either a child wanting to leap into your arms or an elder asking you to sit next to them so they could tell you a story. Each move away from a book was painful. It was like a vast treasure waiting to tell timeless stories to you.
I also saw a 12th-century leaf scroll of Kamba Ramayanam's Uttara Kandam in Tamil (from the Vaiyapuri Pillai collection). Yo man!
The books from the Imperial Library collections are kept tied with cloth ribbons (so that the pages don't fall off). Interestingly, these books were arranged in some classification order yet to be deciphered. So, the National Library has stored the books and the undeciphered order of arrangement. Cute.
I thanked Partha Sarathi (and Gajalakshmi) and promised I would come more leisurely next time and bid farewell.
In this video, I have also spoken about my experience at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC and my childhood experience at the local town library of East Tambaram, Chennai.
Happy listening! Happy reading!
