IN THE CAPITAL, A NEIGHBOURHOOD RALLIES TO SAVE A LIBRARY OF RARE READS
of the room, with its worn wooden door, iron beams and fading signboard.
He inspects the shelves carefully, and says it’s time for the books to come home. “It is a weird feeling. I want them all back here,” he tells Mohammad Sajid, a DYWA member, on the phone.
Sajid, 41, an admin executive, is further up the lane, sitting in a second-floor flat with three other young men, surrounded by cartons of books they’re supposed to catalogue tonight.
In the non-functional kitchen, he opens a carton. “Preserving this treasure is our primary concern,” he says, pointing to the hardbound books inside — Diwan-e-zafar (Poems by Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last Mughal emperor, printed at the royal press, Red Fort, 1885); a copy of the Bhagvad Gita in Urdu; a 600-year-old Arabic book on logic; Sair-ul-aqtab, a 200-year-old book of Sufi teachings.
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Although it started out as a library, the space gradually took on other functions too. Locals come here for help navigating school admissions, advice on business plans, counsel on shariat or Islamic law. “The DYWA members come from various professions. They are accessible and there is a sense of trust. So the library is the go-to place for neighbourhood people,” says Jawwad Iqbal, 24, a law student and a regular at the library.
It remains the go-to space for research material too.
“I had to do a project on the Urdu poet Firaq Gorakhpuri and couldn’t find material. A friend directed me here. I was surprised to find so much information in a neighbourhood community library. I have been visiting ever since,” says Farheen Naz, 23, an MA student at Jamia Millia.
Anand Taneja, assistant professor of religious studies and anthropology at the Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, says he first visited in 2010. “During my doctoral research, whenever I was in Old Delhi, I would make it a point to go there,” he adds. “I would turn to the high shelf of Urdu books on the history of Delhi. Being able to get a sense of Delhi nearly a century ago, while I was investigating the contemporary life and politics around its monuments, was an invaluable gift.”
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Termites paved the way for the renovation. Finally, the DYWA decided to fix the current space by replacing wooden shelves with steel racks, redoing the floor, and finally cataloguing the books.
“The significance of an institute like ours is not tangible. I cannot pinpoint one thing we have changed or give you a count of people who have benefitted,” says Naeem, standing amid the still-bare shelves. “But I can tell you that it is a great feeling to be of help to society in an age when people are increasingly focused on the self.”