Sitting in a small room on the second floor of a building in Rohini Sector 3, 58-year-old Rekha Jain stretches her legs on a broken chair.
A technical assistant at the Rohini branch of the Hardayal Municipal Public Library, Ms. Jain says they have 22 chairs “but only 12 are in a usable condition... We have also been making do with just two tables”.
The branch was inaugurated in January this year.
Pointing at the two small rusty racks in the room, she says that is all the branch has in the name of books. The library has only 27 members — one senior citizen and 26 students. The youth use the library as a quiet room. The books on offer remain untouched as they are hardly of any use to the students.
Starved of funds
Funded by all three municipal corporations, the library has fallen into disrepair. Ms. Jain’s salary for the past eight months is also pending.
Happy tale: The Delhi Public Library in Chandni Chowk has seen its membership rise over the past two years.
“It is becoming harder to make ends meet,” she says, adding,“I have worked in several branches of the library. It used to be in a much better position earlier but the glory days are gone.”
Sitting on a rickety chair and using another one as a makeshift table, 22-year-old Vijay is preparing for Company Secretary exams.
“I can’t study at home due to lack of a conducive environment, so I come here instead. But the first thing I do here is fight for a chair. The condition of the library is pathetic. It lacks even the most basic amenities like drinking water,” he says.
Pooja, who is preparing for the Staff Selection Commission exam, is “disgusted” with the condition of the toilets in the library.
“They are cleaned once every few days but almost always stink. I stay here for hours but it is impossible to use the toilets,” says the 23-year-old.
Ms. Jain says the sanitation worker assigned to clean the toilets in this branch is also tasked with cleaning two other branches in Rohini.
No place to sit
“There is only so much one person can do,” she says.
“I have called the higher-ups nearly 15 times regarding these problems but in vain. I even pleaded with them to send old furniture or get the broken one here repaired but they say they don’t have the funds,” sighs Ms. Jain.
Read between the lines: Fewer visitors frequent the Hardayal Municipal Public Library in Rohini
The library members have gone as far as asking for permission to bring their own chairs, but that is against the rules.
Inside her office at the main branch of the Hardayal Municipal Heritage Public Library in Chandni Chowk, situated on the same premises as
Kotwali police station, librarian Anita Gupta says she is “bound” against commenting on the problems faced by the staff.
North Delhi Mayor Preety Agarwal, who is the chairperson of 24 branches of the library, says she is aware of the problems and is trying to rectify them.
“A few things are in the pipeline for the betterment of the libraries but getting funds from the Delhi government has been problematic,” she says.
The libraries are funded by the civic bodies, which in turn get funds from the Delhi government.
Former librarian Madhukar Rao, who retired in 2013, says the condition of the libraries has been deteriorating since the trifurcation of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi in 2012.
“If you have one father, he’ll take care of you properly. But if you have three fathers, all of them might try to pass the responsibility,” he jokes.
The air conditioners at the main branch were installed just four years ago, when the library collaborated with the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.
“The institute also procured a few computers for us but it eventually lost interest when the management did not chip in,” says Mr. Rao.
“Why would a reader come to the library if there are no facilities? Newspaper and electricity bills haven’t been paid for years, there is no Internet and no new books have been purchased in the past 10 years except for those bought on request or given as donations,” he adds.
Mr. Rao was 18-year-old when he joined the library as a junior staffer in 1971.
“The place used to be packed with people, especially women who felt liberated as they got a chance to read and write as they pleased. Now, the few people who come here create nuisance,” he says.
Tragic tale: The Hardayal Municipal Public Library is falling into a state of disrepair.
Another world
Mr. Rao says he is disappointed in government officials, judges and chartered accountants — who depended on the library to provide them with the resources they needed to ace their public service exams — for forgetting about the place that helped them achieve their goals.
“They all have forgotten about the library,” he rues.
On any given day, hundreds of students, children and senior citizens walk into the Delhi Public Library in Chandni Chowk — mostly referred to by its acronym DPL.
The Centrally-funded library, which has managed to buck the trend, claims that its membership has steadily risen in the past five years. The library had 1,26,091 members in 2015, which rose to 1,39,835 in 2016. The library’s membership currently stands at 1,58,942.
The number of books issued per year, however, has come down from 8.4 lakh in 2015 to seven lakh. The reason, according to library information officer Sudha Mukherjee, is the increase in number of students who come to the library with their own books.
Sitting in his rather posh office with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s photograph behind his chair, director Ram Sharan Gaur says the development of 37 DPLs across the city has been phenomenal since Mr. Modi came to power.
“He has spoken about the importance of books in many of his speeches and has made sure that libraries grow,” he says.
Though he joined the DPL only two years ago, he says his relationship with books goes back to when he was in Class VIII.
A resident of a village near Aligarh, Mr. Gaur says he used to travel 8 km to get a copy of the book he wanted to read. “During antakshari competitions, I would sing poems instead of songs,” he recalls.
Mr. Gaur and Ms. Mukherjee admit that though their membership is higher than most libraries, it is minuscule given the population of Delhi. In an attempt to attract more members, the library organises events where people can come together and share an unforgettable experience.
“If people don’t choose to come here, then we have to approach them on our own,” says Mr. Gaur, adding, “ Pehle ke zamaane mein sadhan nahin they lekin pustak ghar pohonch jati thi [Despite limited modes of transport and few libraries in earlier times, people would make an effort to ensure they had books at home], but now the tradition of going to libraries is dying despite easy travel options”.
In a recent event organised by the library called ‘Summer Camp Programme’, little Shehzad wrote in his feedback notebook: “ Yahan maine khela aur padhai kari aur bohot si cheezein seekhi . Yeh library gareeb bachchon ke liye bohot labhdayak hai [I played, studied and learnt many things here. This library is a boon for poor children]”.
Ten-year-old Alia and eight-year-old Zikra, who were reading a Hindi story in the children’s section, agree that the library is very important.
“We come home from school, have lunch, and then immediately come here to study,” says Alia.
Happy to see children in the library, Mr. Gaur says there is no substitute for books and that the Internet can only be used for reference. The library, however, procured some computers with Internet connection a few years ago for people who need to access material that may not be available in India.
Emphasising the need for parents to sensitise themselves and their children about the importance of books, Mr. Gaur says: “They [the parents] are unable to understand how important it is for their kids to read books — be it for entertainment or education”.
“Residents’ Welfare Associations and families should encourage children to visit libraries for their holistic development,” he adds.
Source: Delhi Public Library
Promoting library
Recently, the Union Ministry of Culture sanctioned ₹224 lakh for modernisation and upgradation of the DPLs. Mr. Gaur says he is yet to receive communication in this regard. However, he adds, the library has many ideas on how to make its presence felt in the Capital.
The management plans to open two more libraries — one each in Ashok Vihar and Bawana. It also plans to increase its fleet of mobile library centres, a van full of books that travels to remote villages. The DPL currently operates 62 vans in Delhi.
“The idea is to connect with the people. We ask our staff to personally attend to children who visit mobile libraries so that they feel the need to become members. But there’s a long way to go for that,” says Ms. Mukherjee.
The library also plans to increase the number of deposit centres, where the DPL gives books free of cost at places that have the space to run a library like Tihar jail and Jama Masjid police station.
“Only places with toilets can become deposit centres. Women and children visit libraries, so we ensure that only places with washrooms are made deposit centres,” says Mr Gaur.
‘Times have changed’
Assistant library information officer S. Rajagopal, who joined the DPL in Chandni Chowk in 1989, proudly shows off the library and recalls the time when the yearly fee used to be just two paise. The current yearly fee is ₹50.
“The times have obviously changed. So many people used to come when I had just joined. Now with technology, the joy of reading a book has gone,” he says.
Greeting the regulars on the way, Mr. Rajagopal enters the main hall where dozens of people from all walks of life are sitting with their nose in either books or newspapers.
After climbing up a flight of stairs, he reaches the section where the library has preserved in red and green binding every edition of two newspapers — Hindustan Times (English) and Nav Bharat Times (Hindi) — since 1954. Pulling an edition from the 1950s, he points to an ad with a funny caricature: “This is how it used to be back then”.
The library also has many sound and gramophone recordings in a section called ‘Newseum’, which also houses old pictures of Indira Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and other famous politicians.
Interestingly, in an attempt to preserve articles that might vanish into oblivion, the library has started preserving DVDs too.
“What if they too become a thing of history?” says Mr. Rajagopal.
