Do You Recommend the Authors You Like to Your Local Library?

 

My journey to the library came a full circle today.

 

I was eighteen the first time I stepped into a proper library: my college library at Lady Brabourne with its musty shelves, and not long after, the air-conditioned premises of British Council Library in Kolkata. Those were dark times, when I often had to make a choice between food and other essentials.

 

Not being of an academic bent of mind, I skipped my Political Science and Economics classes to hide in the library, spending long hours, reading literature from India and all parts of the world.

 

 

Reading had always been my safe space, and libraries became my portals of escape.  In my subconscious, this has become a sort of metaphor–and anytime things have fallen apart in my life, I’ve sought a library. Ten years ago, I wrote this post about spending a day at the library–this was during the drafting of You Beneath Your Skin. I drafted and edited the novel at various branches of the Singapore National Library, and the same is true for The Blue Bar. Many edit rounds happened in the quiet of library rooms.

 

 

Over the last few weeks many libraries in the USA have acquired The Blue Bar–the New York Public Library has thirteen copies, for instance. Today though, I was able to do a surreal thing. In the very library where I’d edited The Blue Bar, and am currently working on its sequel, The Blue Monsoon, I was able to hold The Blue Bar in my hands, all shiny, with a library sticker. And the copies in the other branches are nearly all out on loan.

 

The candid pose above is me, holding my book at the library where it was written. In libraries, or even faced with my own bookshelves, I’ve often been overcome by my own puny existence: the fact that there are millions of books in this world, and mine is just one among them, perhaps to be forgotten in a few years.

 

 

Today, though. Today, for a while I could forget about my own stature as a writer, which in any case is a ridiculous thing.

 

Instead, I was able to stand in awe of this magical space that embraces all, irrespective of their social status, color or creed. This is one human creche where children can come in and be nurtured, their imagination be given free reign, their bodies and minds find stillness and safety.

 

This picture is me pointing at my book in my library, but it is also the projection of a child standing safe in a space that has allowed her to grow all these years.

 

If you like a book, recommend it to your local library.

If you have hours to spare, spend it volunteering at one.

If your local library is in danger, do everything to protect it.

If you are able to donate, give to a library in need–no amount is too small.

 

Standing with The Blue Bar at my library today was joy, but it was also a promise.

 

I know I’ll keep adding more books to that library shelf in all the days I’m given, but I’ll also work towards supporting public libraries no matter where I find them.

 

 

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