Saturday, December 21

Issue 9 – April 2019

Contribute to the next issue
30Jan By Torchlight TeamNo Comments
Issue 10 – July 2019, Issue 11 – October 2019, Issue 12 – February 2020, Issue 2 - June 2017, Issue 3 - September 2017, Issue 4 – January 2018, Issue 5 – April 2018, Issue 6 – July 2018, Issue 7 – October 2018, Issue 8 – January 2019, Issue 9 – April 2019

Contribute to the next issue

Call for Contributions to Torchlight Issue 13, April 2020: Libraries, Reading and Resistance The year 2020 is seeing catastrophes unfold across the world- with violent political instability, economic collapse, and unprecedented environmental crises unfolding everywhere, while a new-media driven frenzy of dystopian narratives are shaping public discourse. Yet history has shown us- as much as contemporary times are doing- that libraries, books, and communities of story-tellers and story-keepers everywhere, have persisted in the face of dire odds to preserve alternative narratives – of solidarity, hopefulness, critical thought, emotional fulfilment - and resisted oppression in myriad ways. In this context, Torchlight: A Journal of Libraries and Bookish Love invites your contributions for ...
Read More
<i>The </i><strong>gendered public library</strong> <i>in Kerala</i>
13Apr By Al Ameen JNo Comments
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...
Read More
<i>Spaces for </i><strong>Reading</strong><strong>, </strong><i>Spaces for </i><strong>Inclusion </strong>
13Apr By Parul Kumtha1 Comment
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...
Read More
<i>Preface: In and Out of the</i> <strong>Library</strong>
13Apr By Himanshu Burte2 Comments
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...
Read More
<strong>ગ્રંથાલય </strong>
8Apr By Kiran Vaghela1 Comment
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...
Read More
<strong>More than a library</strong><i>, by design</i>
8Apr By Surya Kakani1 Comment
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...
Read More
<i>On the Same </i><strong>Page</strong>
2Apr By Beena Choksi5 Comments
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...
Read More
1Apr By Sanathkumar Geetha1 Comment
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...
Read More
<i>No time, no space, but yes, </i><strong>a library</strong><i>: An Odisha story</i>
1Apr By Khushbu Prajapati4 Comments
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...
Read More
गाव ग्रंथालये व्हाया सरकारी शाळा
31Mar By Prakash Anbhule2 Comments
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...
Read More
<i>One </i><strong>walk</strong>, <i>three </i><strong>public libraries</strong>, <i>many </i><strong>thoughts</strong>
30Mar By Mandara Vishwanath and Preedip Balaji1 Comment
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....
Read More