I love people, places and activities that reignite my love for mornings. My Saturday morning began with me gobbling down half cooked food and some bitter coffee to keep me full until I reached Goethe Institut- Max Mueller Bhavan, Bangalore (MMB). It was going to be a day of going around public libraries of the city, thanks to Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS) and MMB’s collaboration. In my 5 years of living in Bangalore, I was visiting 3 out of these 5 libraries for the first time.

A public library, simply put, is any library which allows all people to come in, sit and read through their collections free of charge. Why do we not engage with such institutions as much as we do with newly opened restaurants, flea markets and thrift stores? Does it have something to do with the association between a ‘quality experience’ and ‘spending more money’? While this is a conversation for another day, this very subconscious assumption of my meaning making system was challenged in this walk designed by the IIHS and MMB.

The goal of the walk was simple. It was a perfect teaser, to leave people wanting for more of these very public spaces. Allow me to introduce you to these libraries that I had the privilege of briefly browsing through.

This small and rich library had me gasping over their collection of children’s books, both in English and German. The first book had me wanting to wail and cry and the second one explained to me exactly why I needed to do so. This is a place I would go to with my illustrator friends to cry through the simplicity and profoundness of children’s books. A great window to a new language, and an excellent exercise in perspective shifting for a few hours.

It was here that I had a joyful interaction with a mother of two who was also a co-walker. As she was articulating her worries about her kids, I was telling her to trust them and let them learn from their own mistakes. Who knew that activities like this can be a space for intergenerational healing?

Somewhere between logistical details about this book container– the Bibliothek’s working hours, the librarian subtly mentioned his aspiration to grow the library, and my mind echoed his wish.

This library is the storyteller who makes sense of the world through history. The place to find giant maps and big books about Archeology, Mythology, Indology among others. The librarian Srinivasan took us through hero books at the library like the Ramayana. We also flipped through a copy of the Constitution- fragile, big and handwritten. It is here that you experience books so big, old and precious that you flip through them gently and slowly, embracing the body language of a bomb diffuser.

The inscription stones of Bengaluru is one of the projects that the Mythic society works with. If you are someone who likes aimless walking but would not entirely hate the idea of seeing inscription stones- documents of history across the city while you’re at it, their map that is very conveniently embedded in google maps is something you should bookmark.

If this library was a tree, it would be a big old Banyan Tree. If National Treasure: Book of Secrets was shot in India, it would be shot here. If any payers of property tax have made it here, let me share a fun fact I learned. A percentage of the property tax, ‘library cess’ is what funds the maintenance of this reference library. If it is not curiosity that gets you to this space, perhaps come with an ‘If I am paying for it, I might as well have a look it’ attitude and stay back out of wonder?

Just existing around books and this grand structure of a library was enough stimulation for me to put together my thoughts, and be just harsh enough on myself for not engaging with such spaces enough. I could sense curiosity run through my body, and my brain waves vibrate out of scarcity of new syllables and punctuations. There is so much information waiting in those books to be translated into action. Perhaps there should be a job for simply translating ideas from books into a pool of usable ideas, ready for all those waiting to jump on the entrepreneurship wagon. And a register where people collectively make a list of jobs they wish were ‘legit’- a place where people with money can hire these creatives from.

Cubbon Park library is, as stated with an example, the person that reminds you to dream.

The AF Library is, rightly called a media library. They engage with materials in multiple formats and media, which was also how we got introduced to the library. The librarian Indu had us all on our toes with an interactive get-to-know-the-library exercise. This is where the stereotype of silent libraries was broken briefly for the better.

Spaces like this one, are beyond libraries; they are centres of culture. Our walk to and from these libraries was filled with conversations. Conversations on what makes the Visweswaraya museum ‘seem’ more accessible than the Science Gallery- both spaces key to the spirit of Bangalore. Talks about what impact means. I spoke to someone who moved to Bangalore when they were my age 14 years ago, and how the city has offered them a space to be true to who they are.

While it might seem like I am drifting from the point in classic dérive fashion, there is intent behind why these chats have made it to the blog. It is because a walk about public libraries does not remain a talk about libraries. It transcends into people talking about rights, public transport, taxes, culture, impact, parenting and so much more. It gets people to read and bookmark book names, talk to people about this walk they once went to. Perhaps take a few friends back to these libraries too.

The walk ended with a climax. I would describe the IIHS library as a knowledge repository that I would want my brain to reflect. To someone who regularly thanks the maker of the word ‘interdisciplinary’, for giving me one word to describe the nature of work that is natural to me, this library seemed like the home of that word maker.

The joy of owning books is often spoken about. I am not here to contest that; I enjoy marking my books with sporadic thoughts and notes too. But as someone interested in understanding how society has evolved and learning how to shape this (r)evolution, this library felt like a a curation that has what it takes to turn me into the nerd I aspire to be. Preedip, The IIHS librarian rightly welcomed us on the walk with 4 key words- diversity, inclusion, equity and justice. And these public libraries seemed to have lived these values long before DEI was a thing. We closed the walk with a lovely lunch. I ended the day browsing through books familiar and unfamiliar.

This year has been kind to the reader in me. Thanks to friends and family, good books have landed in my hands and gotten me sailing slow and steady in the flow of reading. The walk felt like wind in the sails of this reading boat. In what was my first book of the year, Bell Hooks talks about Love from a society-level perspective. She talks about how ‘love as a philosophy’ can be at the center of our actions, policies, words, ideas and designs. Anne Helen Petersen’s article, ‘This is how we fall out of love with the world’ talks about how the idea of public infrastructure was primarily constituted with the ideas of care and generosity, and how the lack of visibility of people engaging with these services, puts them at the risk of extinction in the United States.

I would like to end this conversation on a simple note. A request to engage with public infrastructure, public spaces and events like this that remind us of why Maya Angelou described libraries as rainbows in the clouds. We need safe vibrant spaces of possibility that get our curious critical juices flowing. Need I say more?