(29 Dec ’12)
Frederick Noronha, publisher-owner
of 1556, should have been the marketing head of some fast-moving consumer
product. Even if he’s never met you, he directs highly persuasive emails
whenever there’s an event he believes might interest you. This time, on
Thursday 27th Dec, he arranged the annual meeting of GoaNetters at KSL (Krishnadas Shyama Library behind the Panaji
Kadamba Bus Stand). The GoaNetters are a group of Goans who network around the
world: there were members from Toronto and Doha, and some invitees from the US
of A who happened to be staying/studying in Goa for a couple of months. A few
were from Mumbai, one from Dehradun, the rest from different villages and
Panaji, Margao, Mapusa and Vasco. I was told the usual meetings ended in
Dutch-meals. This time, the treat was more than the chai-biscuits offered by
the KSL. We were taken around all six floors, introduced to authors dead for
over five-hundred years, shown their handwriting, made to read what they’d
written in the Latin script, but using Marathi vocabulary, on now-brittle
pages. Bound in thick leather. One book weighed half as much as I do. He
carried and caressed it with such tenderness that many clicked the moment on
their mobile phones.
The ancient documents are preserved
in special tissue paper imported from Germany. The sample shown to us was the
first day, first page of the Gomantak! Some of the documents are carefully
wrapped in red felt cloth, gently tied and kept in glass cubicles. The rare
book section has a ‘vault’ on one side where the rarest of them all are kept.
We really held our breaths in there, lest our humidity damage any. In the
fumigation room, we saw how lovingly the ‘diseased’ inhabitants of the shelves
are rescued from decay-causing micro-organisms. They can do pretty little if a
homo-sapiens decided to cause destruction.
Fiction, history, sciences of
different kinds, old books, older books, even older stuff sat on the floors
lower, on the 3rd floor, children romped over toys and games. Below,
the periodicals section was crowded even on a working day, with people eagerly
flipping and browsing through many hundreds of magazines. The KSL is open on
Sundays, and gets many weekend ‘guests’.
I recommend some hospitality
industry staff observe the workers here. They are polite and knowledgeable. I
was helped to find a book, and guided to drinking water so fast, so
courteously, I couldn’t believe this was a Goan institution with only Goans in
it. We can do it, I thought. Wah.
Architect Gerard D’Cunha answered a
question that was festering in my mind for many days: why had he
air-conditioned the entire library when the plan appeared to be open and
environment friendly. Sometimes, he explained, one has to go by the client’s
wishes, the government in this case. That didn’t convince me. But his second
point did: fresh air wouldn’t be without smell, as in the close neighbourhood
there’s a big garbage dump and a sewage stream. The putrefying matter
advertises itself far and wide. And the KSL is right next to it. Also, open
windows means more dust coming in, more cleaning to be done, more staff to be
employed. So, technology and comfort won.
In the group were
writers/journalists, doctors (well, at least one), soldiers, soldiers’ wives, a
sailor, film-makers, students, and retirees.
By the statue at the entrance (a
huge face made of discarded automobile tyres) we asked Mr Carlos questions. The
conference and lecture halls are modern and available to the public for use.
You can get an idea of the cost of renting from this: the exhibition hall on the
ground floor costs seven thousand rupees for a week. Cheap. The research
cubicles on one of the floors, with chair, table, lock and key, computer with
internet, costs a thousand bucks a month. Cheap. No wonder the trickle of
enquiries is getting bigger by the day.
The thinking folk were glad the
ground floor hadn’t been made into a shopping complex. I wished it had. One
could have done many things in that building, if the facilities had been there.
Ticketed music programs, for instance. And the money could have gone to the
library. They could have sold souvenirs, too. Museums do that.
So this Frederick Noronha who coaxed
me to visit KSL today: thanks. If libraries are fountains of education, data
(we don’t use the word ‘facts’ any more) and thinking, they are, in today’s
world, a value-addition to Google. For though you can take your lap-top to the
loo when you need to dig up information, you can’t substitute the feel of a
real live ‘page’ flipping, can you? And KSL can get for you books/magazines
that you want to read but can’t afford. Go check it out.
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