By Shams Ur Rehman Alavi
www.asiantribune.net
It’s not an easy job—keeping the termites away, protecting the books from dampness and taking care of the age-old collection of books.
The ritual to bring books out in sunlight off and on, the constant preservation and visits to book binders—all this needs special interest and dedication.
But for those who have libraries and rare collection of books at home for over a century, its part of their lifestyle.
In one town in Awadh alone, there were libraries in dozens of homes and though several collections perished, many still exist.
The library in Kaifi Manzil in Kakori town in Lucknow district is one of the many such personal libraries that have rare books and files of old magazines & journals as well as manuscripts.
“My great grand father Nooruddin Kaifi had a unique collection of books, and my father too kept on adding books all his life. We have collection of the famous Maa’rif magazine ever since it started publication, much before independence”, says elderly Mazhar Habib alias Kamaal Miyan.
“It was in early 1940s when my father Moin Ahmad sahab started his professional life, with a job in Hathras. He later shifted to Sitapur later on. Books were his first and last love”.
“For generations, our elders kept the books and its now up to next generation”.
“Once a major publication house was facing financial crunch and it made an appeal for life term super subscription that was a princely sum but could get a person all books published by the publication house later.
Decades later, they told us that my father was the sole man to offer the sum & shared his letter mentioning that as it was a big sum, he could pay the money in instalments”, says Kamaal Miyan, with pride.
“Towns in Awadh are known for their love for the written word, especially, literature. We have libraries in other homes too in this qasbah (town). Bibliophiles come here”, says Kamaal Miyan showing Bollywood actor (late) Dharmendra’s message to him in Urdu, drawing attention towards handwriting of the actor who had come here nearly two years ago.
For generations, the towns of North India have historically been hubs of literature, art and culture. The qasbahs or the word ‘towns’ in Indian connotation, a place that’s urban but is not a big or metro city, rather, retains old as well as new and is a place that is neither rural, nor far from the rural folk.
In the Indo-gangetic belt, the culture of libraries was not limited to Awadh alone. Apart from Lucknow, another major ‘dabistaan’ is Bhopal, which is now capital of Madhya Pradesh. It is a city known for its culture, poetry and literary traditions.
There are libraries and personal collections, home libraries in Bhopal and towns around it. Patna, Aligarh and Rampur were also among cities with substantial number of unique personal collections and libraries that were set up at homes by people and these collections benefited researchers.
In fact, more than 150-200 years ago too, several such ‘idaarah(s)’ were functioning not just as libraries but were also preserving the manuscripts and handwritten texts, voluminous treatizes, rare books, even printing and publishing own books.
Email: shams.alavi@gmail.com
