Sections

<i>On the </i><strong>Same Page</strong>
Chiaroscuro, Issue 10 – July 2019

On the Same Page

Being able to criss-cross the globe on the strength of the Internet has made it possible to engage with creative ideas, conversations, and experiences which otherwise would be beyond our reach—and at times, even beyond our imagination.  On The Same Page will bring to the reader of Torchlight, a combination of textual-audio-visual curated content, about and around libraries and bookish love.  The proliferation of digitally mediated spaces in the last few years has been accompanied by mass leveraging of social media for activism. This ‘digital activism’ uses social media to challenge and resist dominant narratives, creating affinity spaces oriented towards a common goal. Virtual conversations transcend geographical boundaries to move across locations creating powerful global movements, impa...
<i>The Agents of Ishq </i><strong>Queer Reading List</strong>
Chiaroscuro, Issue 10 – July 2019

The Agents of Ishq Queer Reading List

Books are windows into experiences and as cultural conversations around gender identity and sexual orientation expand and multiply, they offer us lives and worlds to unpack the meaning of diversity. The fact that stultifying notions of what we can be and whom we can love are being increasingly challenged is a cause for celebration. However, this comes with a wide spectrum of responses, from bigotry and hate to confusion and anxiety. True to our philosophy here at Torchlight, we look to the bookshelf to deal with that. Happily, there is a rich and growing storehouse for those who ask questions for the purpose of educating themselves and others, those who seek resonance of their own lives or those who simply want their reading to encompass the world in all its diversity. So, as part of our t...
<strong>100 Diverse Books </strong><i>to make a Collection</i>
Chiaroscuro, Issue 10 – July 2019

100 Diverse Books to make a Collection

A library's collection is its heart and soul, the very foundation on which a library is built. It acts as a conduit for its community to learn about the world, see themselves reflected in it, contribute to a definition of themselves and engage with varied perspectives. The collection allows us to dream, to imagine, to enter worlds without going far. A library resides in its collection and so, we felt it was important to share a slice of our diverse collection with you. Why diverse? We live in a society that is diverse in every aspect, from language, religion, ethnicity, sexuality to beliefs, experiences and opinions. A library collection needs to reflect this diversity, in order for it to truly open up stories and lives from different lenses, realities and viewpoints. A diverse collectio...
<i>Making Friendship with </i><strong>Feminist Books</strong>
Chiaroscuro, Issue 10 – July 2019

Making Friendship with Feminist Books

As a young teen and adult, my relationship with books was almost sexual. There was an endless search – for something, not quite sure what. In pre-liberalisation India, in a pre-internet world, the search for a name for my feelings, the search for a rendition of those feelings was urgent and amorphous. At New Book Land, the circular bookshop in Janpath, I remember buying for ten rupees a book of short stories by an Egyptian writer, Ahdaf Soueif, and feeling thrilled by what I read. In the British Council library I borrowed two books, because one’s cover entranced me, full of fairy tale circus images, and the other’s name delighted me – Sexing The Cherry and Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit. Walking on the street in New York, I bought for one dollar a copy of Bell Hooks’ Black Looks. I had no...
<strong>India</strong> <i>On My </i><strong>Book Shelf </strong>
Chiaroscuro, Issue 10 – July 2019

India On My Book Shelf

My bookshelf has looked the same for as long as I can remember. It goes from the floor up to the ceiling and is daffodil yellow in colour. It has been in my room since I started reading at the age of four. While books have been discarded and replaced over the years, the bookshelf has never been empty. The Magic Faraway Tree was a gift for my sixth birthday. One of our two copies of the Lord of the Rings made its way to my bookshelf soon after. Over the next year, my dad began reading a few pages out loud to me every night before I went to bed. Every so often, we could be heard pompously reciting, “In the land of Mordor, where the shadows lie,” in gleeful unison. We eventually memorised the entire poem. I even wrote the clichéd “all that is gold does not glitter” poem on handmade ‘golden’ ...
<i>The </i><strong>gendered public library</strong> <i>in Kerala</i>
Issue 9 – April 2019, Spotlight

The gendered public library in Kerala

Modern Kerala society has a long tradition of social dialogue in public spaces. This essay will explore the participation of women in this public sphere, drawing on a short student research project focused on public libraries. Women in Kerala access public libraries not only for issuing books and reading them but also to participate in the culture of public dialogue. But how accessible and inclusive towards women are these public libraries in reality?  I address this question by drawing on a study conducted in two different areas of Kerala. The urban setting was Njanapradayini Library Neyyattinkara (Thriuvananthapuram, South Kerala) and the public and Central libraries in Thiruvananthapuram city. Libraries studied in the rural setting included VelamPothujanaVayanasala, Mayyil, Kannur distr...
<i>Spaces for </i><strong>Reading</strong><strong>, </strong><i>Spaces for </i><strong>Inclusion </strong>
Issue 9 – April 2019, Spotlight

Spaces for Reading, Spaces for Inclusion

"Each of us is an embodiment of many stories. Often, our more dominant stories could be hurting us while other healing ones lie dormant and ready to be discovered. By making room for the discovery of our healing stories, we create the spaces for inclusion."   Such was the outlook we developed and adopted towards designing reading spaces at two locations for children with special needs for an Early Intervention Centre in Mumbai. This outlook is the result of experience and associated insight : over two decades as a parent to a young adult with special needs, over three decades as a social activist working within groups striving for the inclusion of the socially marginalized, and as an architect working at breaking down barriers through ‘universal design’.   The design, which i...
<i>Preface: In and Out of the</i> <strong>Library</strong>
Chiaroscuro, Issue 9 – April 2019

Preface: In and Out of the Library

In Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience (1977), the geographer Yi-Fu Tuan calls place a ‘concretion of value’. By that measure, a good library is clearly and intensely a place. Like all ‘real’ places, it is more significant every day as physical space dissolves into the virtual with the increasing speed of bytes and vehicles. But is the space of the ‘real’ library what it appears to be? This issue of Torchlight explores the question from various perspectives, and across diverse locations and forms of enquiry. We read the library’s immovability in Kiran Vaghela’s Gujarati prose-poem inspired by the haibun form, as a valued guarantee of its continuity in time (‘…it is still there’). As a counterpoint, Alia Sinha’s graphic meditation in the ‘Readerly Problem’ floats on the hope tha...
<strong>ગ્રંથાલય </strong>
Chiaroscuro, Issue 9 – April 2019

ગ્રંથાલય

Illustration by Priya Kuriyan ગ્રંથાલય ઘણા સ્મરણો એવા હોય છે જે તમારી જિંદગીમાં ગૂંથાઈ જઈ ભાગ બની જાય છે જિંદગી નો અને અવિરત પણે વિસ્તર્યાં કરે છે જિંદગીભર 1968 -69 ના વર્ષ માં અમે લોકો ભુજ આવ્યા ગંગાબાઈ મિડલ સ્કૂલ ના પ્રાંગણ માં જિલ્લા ગ્રંથાલય હતું- અને આજે પણછે તેના લાંબા પગથિયાં મને શાળા ના પહેલા દિવસ થી આકર્ષ્યા કરતા હતા તેનો બાળ વિભાગ મારી પ્રિય  જગ્યા બની ગઈ અને કુમાર  મેગેઝીન કે જેના સ્થાપક કલા ગુરુ  રવિ શંકર રાવલ હતા તેને મારા માનસ પર બરાબરની  પક્કડ જમાવી ત્રીજા ચોથા ધોરણ ની મારી ઉમર માં કલા  સ્થાપત્ય આકાશ દર્શન ના લેખો એ મારા જીવન ઘડતર માં મહત્વ નો ફાળો ભજવ્યો વાંચન નું બીજ આવી રીતે વવાયું અને આજે પણ પાંગર્યા કરેછે વૃક્ષ ની જેમ મારા અંદર   શહેરની વચ્ચો વચ  રહેલો  શાંત અને  મુંગો અવકાશ બચપણ થી મારા અંદર વિસ્તર્યાં કરેછે  . આજે  પણ  તેમની શાંત આંખો માં આંખો પરોવી તેની  મ...
<strong>More than a library</strong><i>, by design</i>
Chiaroscuro, Issue 9 – April 2019

More than a library, by design

In a rapidly changing world that is redefining notions of the public and the private, the virtual and the real, information is now a technology that manifests right on one’s personal laptop! In such a scenario, do libraries as physical spaces still have a role to play as important public commons? We posed this question to ourselves when asked to design ‘Sundarayya Vignana Kendra’ an institutional-scaled library complex in Hyderabad’s Gachi Bowli area. While outlining the design programme for SVK, we looked at a library not just as a repository of information but also as the only public space that allows for quiet contemplation. In the physical access to knowledge that it provides, by contrast with the hidden retrieval structures of digital information, a library symbolically embodies ano...
<i>On the Same </i><strong>Page</strong>
Chiaroscuro, Issue 9 – April 2019

On the Same Page

THINKING OUT OF THE BOX Being able to criss-cross the globe on the strength of the Internet has made it possible to engage with creative ideas, conversations, and experiences which otherwise would be beyond our reach—and at times, even beyond our imagination.  On The Same Page will bring to the reader of Torchlight, a combination of textual-audio-visual curated content, about and around libraries and bookish love.   During my first years of schooling, my idea of what libraries looked like was as constant as the four-walled spaces that housed them. I knew where to go and be sure that I would find them in the same place, day after day, week after week.  Between Mondays and Fridays it was the 3-room library in my school and on weekends it was the neighbour’s curiously charming home li...
Chiaroscuro, Issue 9 – April 2019

The Group’s Study

If you had not seen the board proclaiming it as an institute of technology, you would have been right in mistaking it to be a chawl. It was a cement-coloured E-shaped building looming at the edge of a slum. Along each of its six floors ran a contiguous lobby providing access to every layer of classroom stacked on top of each other. As you measured the chawl-comparison for suitability, a look at the intense security at the gate, restricted movement of teenagers inside the premises, and the general vibe of anxiety would conjure a more apt visual cue. A Jail!! It was called that even by the strictest parent of many an engineering student schooled within it. This was twenty years ago. It has got to be different now. It is hard to imagine parents with millennial aesthetics sending their childre...
<i>No time, no space, but yes, </i><strong>a library</strong><i>: An Odisha story</i>
Chiaroscuro, Issue 9 – April 2019

No time, no space, but yes, a library: An Odisha story

Colorful books about animals, birds, plants and ‘moral’ tales hung from a rope tied to the wall of the classroom. ‘Didi’ (the teacher) took out a book and told her children to pick their desired books. It was library period and children knew it was ‘their time with books.’ They went up to the rope and picked out the ones they liked, and sat back on the floor to read. When the teacher had first entered the class, the children had been seated in their usual neat rows. But soon as they returned with their chosen books and got down to reading them, there was no place to put a foot down. Children were scattered in the room, some were reading individually while some chose to share and read. They sat in the corners of the room, side by side, back to back, encircled - each child with his or her ow...
गाव ग्रंथालये व्हाया सरकारी शाळा
Chiaroscuro, Issue 9 – April 2019

गाव ग्रंथालये व्हाया सरकारी शाळा

“कोणत्याही बालकाला शिक्षणापासून वंचित ठेवले जाणार नाही आणि त्याचे मन मारले जाईल अशा शाळेत त्यालाजावे लागणार नाही,” अशा एका जगाचे स्वप्न उराशी बाळगून महाराष्ट्रातील सातारा जिल्ह्यातील फलटण गावात१९७८ साली डॉ मॅक्सीन बर्नसन यांनी प्रगत शिक्षण संस्थेची सुरूवात केली. अगदी वंचितांपासून ते उच्चवर्गीयांपर्यंत सर्वांना गुणवत्तापूर्ण शिक्षण मिळणे गरजेचे आहे आणि प्रत्येक मूल जन्मतः शिकण्याच्या ज्या नैसर्गिक प्रेरणा घेऊन येते त्या शिक्षणाच्या प्रक्रियेत मारल्या जाऊ नयेत अथवा त्यांना लगाम बसू नये ही संस्थेची मुख्य तत्त्वे. देशभरात प्रयोगशील म्हणून ओळखली जाणारी कमला निंबकर बालभवन ही शाळा प्रगत शिक्षण संस्थेने सुरू केली. पण आपल्या स्वतःच्या एक-दोन शाळा सुरू करून आपले व्यापक स्वप्न पूर्ण होणे शक्य नाही हे संस्थेने जाणले.हे स्वप्न सत्यात उतरवायचे असेल तर मुख्य प्रवाहात असलेल्या शासनाच्या शाळांबरोबर काम क...
<i>One </i><strong>walk</strong>, <i>three </i><strong>public libraries</strong>, <i>many </i><strong>thoughts</strong>
Chiaroscuro, Issue 9 – April 2019

One walk, three public libraries, many thoughts

Mandara Vishwanath, Preedip Balaji, Rajeswari Parasa, and Akash Chandan helped organise a Public Library Walk as part of City Scripts 2019, an annual urban writings festival hosted by the Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS) in Bengaluru. In this piece, they chronicle their experiences of the walk on 9 February 2019, which began at the Mythic Society Library on Nrupathunga Road, then moved on through Cubbon Park to the State Central Library, and ended at the IIHS Library in Sadashivanagar. The walk was curated and hosted by the chief librarians of each library. It is easier than ever these days to buy a book. We live in the times of Amazon Prime guaranteeing overnight delivery and the Kindle providing easy access to a variety of books published worldwide at the click of a button....
<i>Kitabein Kuch Kehna Chahti Hain:</i> <strong>Children & Books at Studio Safdar</strong>
Issue 8 – January 2019, Spotlight

Kitabein Kuch Kehna Chahti Hain: Children & Books at Studio Safdar

For the last three and a half years, every Sunday without a single break, children from Shadi Khampur, Ranjit Nagar and Guru Nanak Nagar in West Delhi come to the Studio Safdar community library to read, to sing and play, to enter the world of books. Studio Safdar is an arts space, named after Safdar Hashmi (1954-1989), one of the founders of the theatre group Jana Natya Manch. Safdar was killed at the young age of 34, while performing a play in an industrial area on the outskirts of Delhi. Studio Safdar was set up in 2012, to give concrete shape to Safdar’s dream of a space that would on the one hand be a resource for theatre persons to hold rehearsals and performances, and on the other to revitalize the cultural and artistic life of a local, underprivileged community. Safdar himself wr...
<strong>Fifteen Copies and Counting:</strong><i> Why Wuthering Heights Keeps Multiplying on My Shelf</i>
Issue 8 – January 2019, Spotlight

Fifteen Copies and Counting: Why Wuthering Heights Keeps Multiplying on My Shelf

Like most people in ishq waala love with books, I have amassed a loosely curated personal library over the years. Illustration by Alia Sinha My parents, like most newly upwardly mobile folk who want to give their children a better education than the one they received, made fine distinctions between useful and wasteful reading all throughout my school years. This meant that all off-the-syllabus fiction was looked at askance; only textbooks constituted serious reading. My school years were therefore spent hungering after books. The school library allowed only one book per week and even that privilege was taken away during exam months and board years; very few peers read so borrowing was out too, and Kindle and Nook and other handy e-readers were still a few years away. I made the best of ...
<i>Preface to </i><strong>Issue 8 </strong>
Chiaroscuro, Issue 8 – January 2019

Preface to Issue 8

This issue’s theme, Libraries: Personal and Communal, comes from the experiences of people we like to see as part of the growing Torchlight tribe – people who have sought to work with books, libraries, and reading because of how it has enriched their lives. Many have expanded this deeply personal engagement to inhabit a larger space, to grow a community in. Torchlight itself is such an endeavor and so we felt, it is worth asking the question: What drives this desire to share this love, almost compulsively, and what comes from it? The resultant stories are about libraries, rules, aspirations, indulgences – and all the intersections between personal love and public spaces.   In Spotlight, we focus on personal love in Neha Yadav’s Fifteen Copies and Counting, a story about the several ...