Rare repository INDU K. MALLAH The Niligiri Library will be celebrating its 150th anniversary next year. Photo: Roshini K. Mallah Hoary history: The Nilgiri Library. Driving into the grounds of the Nilgiri Library, I have a feeling of homecoming, to a house without walls, a country without borders. Seconds away is the bustle and ceremony of a commercial world. Minutes away, the wheels of bureaucratic machinery gr ind routinely. As I enter the library, I see a clipping on the notice-board: “Author of the Month — Chinua Achebe”, a tribute to the African author on winning the Booker International Award. Another clipping for the “Thought for the week”: Do not walk behind me, I may not lead; Do not walk in front of me, I may not follow: Just walk beside me And be my friend Albert Camus I walk into the spacious reading room with tall, arched, Gothic windows, through which the mellow monsoon light floods in and reflect; what a happy rendezvous of the inner and the outer “light”. A bison’s head adorns the far wall, above the doorway. On the right is a painting of Mahatma Gandhi. Old prints of colonial Nilgiris hang on the walls. A faded manuscript of Desiderata hangs on one wall (Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence…) A senior citizen is reading a newspaper at a lectern; a young girl is curled up in a sofa, flicking through the pages of a magazine; a student is making notes at the writing-table. On the display rack showcasing new books, I notice titles by Amartya Sen, Amitav Ghosh, Orhan Pamuk, Kauo, Jostein Garder, and Joanne Harris, to mention a few, to cater to the tastes of a wide ranging readership. Stories from everywhere I walk through the swing doors into the fiction room. Here are shelves of books arranged alphabetically. Here are housed the literatures of many lands, including that of England, America, Canada, Australia, Egypt, Nigeria, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Japan. There is a prominent section on Indian Writing in English. I climb upstairs to the Wardrop room, also known as the Conference Room. On the wall facing me is an oil painting of Queen Victoria. Photographs of colonial dignitaries and office bearers of the Nilgiri Library of yore adorn the walls. There are old, bound issues of Punch and Fraser’s magazines, stacked on the shelves; two book cases contain French and German books. The reference section houses sets of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, back issues of the Quarterly Review, and Blackwood Magazine. Here are reference books spanning the gamut from English Literature, History, Sociology through Anthroplogy, Politics, Economics, Physics, Chemistry, to Philosophy and Spiritualism. I leaf through a rare edition of the Rig Veda, which I had searched for everywhere else in vain. There are books on fishing, and African hunting! Here are original manuscripts, first editions, and other rare editions dating back to the 1600s — a veritable bibliophile’s Alladin’s Cave. The Nilgiri Library has a hoary history. According to Sir Frederick Price’s Ootacamund: A History, as for back as 1829 there was mention of a public reading room by the founder of Ootacamund, John Sullivan, in a letter to the Government. In January 1859, a public meeting was held at Ootacamund at which it was unanimously resolved to establish a public library. In August 1867 the foundation stone of the main portion of the existing library was laid. In April 1869 the completion of library was celebrated by a ball in the Reading Room. Extensive collection The Nilgiri Library is a Victorian building, in keeping with the Victorian architecture of the court premises and the law chambers of Gonsalves and Gonsalves. It has over 40,000 thousand books and over 400 members. It is run by a management committee. The motto of the Nilgiri Library is Abeunt Studia In Mores which roughly translates to “One’s reading influences one’s values (character)” I reflect: What an appropriate motto. The rules of the Nilgiri Library state, inter alia, that any room in the library may be used for lectures or for socials, musicals, or meetings of any kind other than political, at the discretion of the management committee. I recall that plays, musical soirees, lectures, book reviews, poetry readings have taken place within the precincts of these hoary walls. Among visitors to the Library are such distinguished personages as Fatima Beevi, former Governor of Tamil Nadu, Rajam Krishnan, the writer, Manikath Krishna Kumar from the royal house of Cochin and I.K. Gujral, former Prime Minister of India, and his wife Sheela. Sheela Gujral subsequently presented the library with a volume of her poems. With such a background, the 150th anniversary celebrations of the Library take on a significant aspect. Preparations are already under way. The popular consensus is that the celebrations should be staggered over a 12-month period from June/ July 2008. The general opinion is that the commemoration should be a celebration of the joy reading, learning and evolving, of the thrill of walking through doors in one’s mind and spirit to yet new frontiers of knowledge, wisdom and beauty. Printer friendly page Send this article to Friends by E-Mail
Posted on: Tue, 18 Jun 2013 04:52:02 +0000
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