The library !

I am a sucker for books! Deep down, I know I am. But I had never been able to easily expose myself to the world of wodehouse, kafka, tintin, asmiov, sheldon, seth, lapierre, agatha christie and others (not in any specific order) at the same time and at the same place. The Asiatic Library in erstwhile Bombay ( ya ya its Mumbai now), was in deep downtown and almost out of reach to the suburbian (dont know if this word exists in the dictionary) folk. The British Library, as the name suggests, was for books authored by Britis authors, and similar to the Asiatic, was out of reach.

Although, I could blame myself for not taking the 'pain' of taking the local train all the way for picking and dropping off a few books. But, I cant be solely blamed for this. The government assumed that suburbian folk (again) were somehow less intrigued by literature and were probably more focussed on livelihood, survival, politics and academics (in that order!). Hence, I would assume, they did not build any public libraries, where bulk of the population lived.

Libraries in colleges/universities/schools were good. They were full of books. Mostly academic. I already had enough of them, thanks to my professors. The thought of going to the library for more studies, made me sick.

My idea of a library is something like this. Atleast 10 storeys tall, with multiple seating and reading rooms, tons and tons of neatly stacked books and segregated as per field, author, academic/non academic, age groups, and so on and so forth. Add in an auditorium for book reading, discussion groups, and community building activities. And of course, free!
I would love to be lost in this world.

I did visit a library like I have mentioned above. Last weekend, in downtown Seattle, I went to the Seattle Public Library. It took me 5 minutes to avail a membership card and I was free to browse and read whatever caught my eye in those hundreds of shelves. I was like a child, running around, looking at the different sections and books, and simply overjoyed. I also found a lot of homeless citizens, using the library for shelter, simply seated there and waiting for the day to pass in solitude. And of course, the ubiquitous STARBUCKS.

As I browsed through the sections, I realized that in the US, these are basic facilities, in every main city. I did not want to tread further into yet another deep US - India comparison that we as Indians in foreign land generally do. I borrowed a few books of interest and headed out, with a resolution to make the most of this opportunity.

PS:
Starbucks, this coffeee chain is literally round the corner, everywhere in Seattle.