Issues

3Jan By Dileep Sharma8 Comments

Alt Shift, Issue 4 – January 2018

कहानी और “और एक कहानी”

सिरोही जिले के आबू रोड ब्लॉक में अर्ली लिटरेसी प्रोजेक्ट के तहत 10 राजकीय विद्यालयों की प्राथमिक कक्षाओं में बच्चों के साथ लाइब्रेरी कार्य करने के दौरान टैबलेट आधारित ई-पुस्तकों के संकलन (ई-रीडर) का अनुप्रयोग हुआ l इस प्रोजेक्ट, जिसको “और एक कहानी” नाम दिया गया, के साथ काम करने के दौरान बच्चों ने जो प्रतिक्रियाएं दी, उससे कई सवाल मेरे मन में घर कर गए l टैबलेट जैसे उपकरण पर बच्चों ने पहली बार जब अपनी नन्ही उंगलिंयां फिराते हुए अपनी दुनिया के बारे में खोजना शुरू किया तो उनके चेहरे पर उत्सुकता एवं आनंद के भाव बिखरे देख बहुत अच्छा लगा l बोलती किताबों और पात्रो की गतिशील रंगीनीयत ने बच्चों को अपनी ओर तुरंत व सहज ही आकर्षित कर लिया और सबसे पहला सवाल मन में खड़ा हुआ - क्या किताबें पहली बार में ऐसा कर पाती ? टैबलेट पर कुछ महीने अंगुलियां फिराते-फिराते बच्चों ने कहानियों की ई-किताबों से दोस्त...

Read More

2Jan By Siddhartha SarmaNo Comments

Axis, Issue 4 – January 2018

A Virtual Quest: Rare books and a Recreation of Childhood

I come from a place and a time where the experience of seeking books was a mixed one. On the one hand, I met the last representatives of a generation for whom the public library was of tremendous significance. Some of these people had even collaborated to set up the first public libraries in my part of the world. On the other, I grew up at a time when reading had been compartmentalized into syllabi and mandated material, and books (read: textbooks) were keys to employment. Within my own generation, public libraries withered away. My school encouraged borrowing from the library, and in my neighbourhood was the biggest library in the Northeast, so these were valuable resources for me. We also had, in our city, a rare bird — the only library meant exclusively for children. It had children’...

Read More

30Dec By Sohail Akbar4 Comments

Axis, Issue 4 – January 2018

In My Father’s Library

In the age of the digital when most reading is done off the screen, the sensory appeal of paper as the reading material has its own charm. A room full of books plays on our senses in so many ways. The smell, texture and rustle of paper draws any ardent reader into an immersion that is not worthy of any comparison with reading off a screen. Ask any voracious reader and she will say that we all prefer paper. Possessing books is as valuable for readers as collecting jewelry is for many. My father Ziaul Haq is one such person. He has a vast personal collection of books that he has slowly nurtured and built over a period of seventy years. At 97 years of age, he sits proudly amongst the books he loves so much. Allahabad, the city where he resides had the reputation of being a hub of the li...

Read More

30Dec By Neha YadavNo Comments

Axis, Issue 4 – January 2018

Preface to Issue 4

Dear Torchlighters, Technology is everywhere. Inventions that would have been unthinkable just a few decades ago are essential components of everyday life now. Libraries and readers too have been swept up in its all-encompassing embrace; Kindle screens wink at us from bedside tables, archives become digitally available, and writers tweet out stories in real time to a breathless audience of millions. As with all other change, this too has its share of nay-sayers. Some worries and complaints – about elitism and privilege, shortened attention spans and lost nuances, digital isolation – are entirely legitimate and, to varying degrees, already apparent. The need of the hour seems to be platforms where a multiplicity of voices from all walks of life can think through, at some leisure, the ramif...

Read More

30Dec By Alia SinhaNo Comments

Alt Shift, Issue 4 – January 2018

A Technical Readerly Problem

Read More

23Sep By Alia SinhaNo Comments

Alt Shift Archives, Issue 3 - September 2017

A Library is Like…

Read More

22Sep By Lakhmi KohliNo Comments

Alt Shift Archives, Issue 3 - September 2017

किताबों का अंबार

(लेखक : यह सिर्फ़ एक लिखित दस्तावेज़ नहीं है बल्कि ये बतलाता है कि निम्नवर्गीये बसेरों में पढ़ने की जगहों का धीरे - धीरे करके लुप्त हो जाना कितने पाठकों को खो रहा है। हम ये तो मानकर चलते हैं कि हर इंसान एक पुस्तकालय की तरह होता है लेकिन इस पुस्तकालय से मिलने की जगह कहाँ है? ये दस्तावेज़ उस 'कहाँ' को देखने की चेष्ठा में अभी तक ख़त्म ही नहीं हुआ है...) Photo credit: Lakhmi Kohli ज़मीन पर एक बेहद जज्जर सी दरी बिछा दी गई। पूरी जगह अभी खाली है। दरी बिछा कर पार्क को साफ करने का काम किया जा रहा है। बड़ी सी झाड़ू को लिए एक शख्स ज़मीन की छाती को चीर रहा है। सूखे पत्ते उस झाड़ू की चुभन से दूर होकर यहाँ से वहाँ दौड़ लगा रहे हैं। कभी कोने में चले जाते हैं तो कभी बीच में आ जाते हैं। ज़मीन फिर भी साफ होती दिखाई दे रही है। झाड़ू लगाता हुआ शख्स दरी के ऊपर से भी उसी तरह से सफाई कर रहा है जैसे ज़मीन की कर रहा था। झ...

Read More

21Sep By Neha YadavNo Comments

Issue 3 - September 2017, Spotlight Archives

Library in My Colours

What Happens When You Ask 8-10 Year Old Kids to Draw Their Libraries?   Chaos. Total, utter chaos. Popular wisdom tells us that we are easier off herding a bunch of wild cats than devising plans that hinge on the cooperation of young children. So when yours truly commandeered a small group of miniature patrons at Panjim’s Bookworm library on a languorous Saturday morning for this project, she did it with a healthy dose of trepidation. She was righteously justified later when, despite the assistance of a supernaturally efficient and clearly beloved instructor, the kids refused to draw anything that even slightly resembled a conventional library. Buildings, seating, librarians, even books proved optional in the reading spaces these children envisioned. Life is what happens ...

Read More

17Sep By Samina MishraNo Comments

Axis, Issue 3 - September 2017

Preface to Issue 3

Dear Torchlighters,   The torch of bookish love was probably lit for all of us somewhere in our childhoods and this issue celebrates that by shining a light on Children and Libraries. It takes a village to raise a child, we know, and a library should occupy a central place in that village. Children need to have a plurality of experiences and influences and a library is one of the easiest ways of doing this. Every child should be able to walk into a library, pick a book off its shelves, perhaps talk to someone who loves that book, or maybe even daydream through its pages. Sadly, we are far away from that ideal in India, though we have had some excellent initiatives in recent times that must be celebrated and replicated. And so, this issue.   In Spotlight, we look back ...

Read More

15Sep By Nandini ChandraNo Comments

Alt Shift Archives, Issue 3 - September 2017

Crowded Readings: The Children’s Magazine in Colonial North India

Wherever people habitually congregate, that is a potential site for a library. - S R Ranganathan, The Five Laws of Library Science (1931) Illustration: Alia Sinha   In anti-intellectual cultures, or cultures that prioritise the so-called everyday business of living over reading—more particularly life in the survival mode—reading is often seen as taking time off from life, and thus a luxury. Historically, reading has been seen as a proxy form of living, sort of like today’s social media. Marcel Proust tried to break apart this polarised view of living versus reading by calling attention to the relationship between childhood reading and its many interruptions — a friend coming to play, dinnertime, sun glinting in your eye, etc. These interruptions might have seemed annoying at t...

Read More

15Sep By 5 writersNo Comments

Issue 3 - September 2017, Spotlight Archives

The Enchanted Room: Remembering Childhood Libraries

            SWAHA, CUTTACK, 1990s In the small, sleepy town of Cuttack, summer is long. Too long or so they say. The sun glares down at you, the sweat sticks to your skin and there is little you can do outside. I don’t remember the heat so much because I escaped into a different world through books.   Growing up in a joint family with 20 members at any given point and more in a state of influx, I craved a space for myself, for my dreams to soar. They did – through the hundreds of books I borrowed from my school library and the personal collection of my father’s cousin. When I was in the middle of a book, I became anti-social - at least my mother complained that I did. Time, space and people did not matter.   ...

Read More

12Sep By Navdeep2 Comments

Alt Shift Archives, Issue 3 - September 2017

Is There Something Odd About Me?

Why we need queer-inclusive children's libraries   Adults have an instinctive need to protect children. It is a worthy goal, but when adults begin to sanitise the world children are exposed to, it is analogous to keeping them in a sterile environment. They are deprived of a chance to develop and to understand the world. Sanitising stories of things that are uncomfortable to discuss begs the question: what are we protecting the child from? Is there an appropriate age, for example, at which to let children learn that grown-ups like becoming close friends, dating, falling in love, marrying each other, separating from a partner - not necessarily in that order? Why do we erase realities like abuse and war from children's stories? Whether we like it or not, children see these things all...

Read More

12Sep By Alia SinhaNo Comments

Alt Shift Archives, Issue 3 - September 2017

A Small Readerly Problem

Read More

10Sep By Beena ChoksiNo Comments

Alt Shift Archives, Issue 3 - September 2017

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. "And I say to myself, 'What a wonderful world!'" From the 1990s, school classrooms across the world started to become ethnically and culturally more diverse. As populations migrated from their home countries—by choice or compulsion—immigrant cultures and languages permeated classrooms. The need to understand and be understood by classmates is daunting for a child who speaks a different tongue. How doe...

Read More

5Sep By Medha BhattNo Comments

Axis, Issue 3 - September 2017

Bugs of the Forest Floor

“Can I become a bug?” a question the Mama Bug encountered every evening in the playground. Mama Bug rejoiced to see her colony of bugs grow in size on the forest floor. With every new enthusiastic bug joining the colony, Mama Bug reminisced about the adventurous journey of triumphs and trials it had been. This colony was called The Bug Club where the bugs could read, observe, collect, explore, and share their love for the natural world. The forest floor transformed into a dynamic space where Mama Bug not only recycled waste but also nurtured and inspired a love for the forests in the young ones. The Bug Club exploring the neighborhood backyards This is the story of my journey from being a Textile Artist working in the area of Zero Waste to a Mama Bug (a title bestowed upon me by a ...

Read More

1Sep By Vivek Vellanki1 Comment

Issue 3 - September 2017, Spotlight Archives

Open Libraries: Realities and Radical Possibilities

Usha Mukunda in conversation with Vivek Vellanki This conversation is an edited version of a podcast originally featured as part of Dialoging Education, a podcast developed by the Regional Resource Centre for Elementary Education, University of Delhi. As an 8-year-old I eagerly waited for that one hour every week we used to get to spend in our school’s library. I had memorized the chore. We would all stand in a line outside our class, with fingers on our lips. The librarian, Rukmini Ma’am, would walk us to the library. All the while, there would be murmurs along the way; do you think the Hardy Boys solved the mystery? I am going to finish reading that story about Shikari Shambu today; I can’t wait to find out what happens to Harry Potter once he gets off the train. The library wa...

Read More

20Aug By Alexandria AngNo Comments

Axis, Issue 3 - September 2017

The Value of Libraries: From the Eyes of a Book Blogger

The first time I walked into a library, I never understood the true power of being amongst such vast knowledge and history. I just knew that I liked books, and that I was broke so I needed some way to escape my boredom. Now, after nearly three years of being a book blogger and Youtuber, I can proudly admit that if not for libraries I would have never ended up where I am today. I owe my love of books to libraries. Over time, my love for reading became more about overcoming those long days when I finished my homework or studying and had nothing else to do. It became more about completing those school reading logs that we were assigned once a week (which for the record I mostly lied about). I read to fight dragons, travel through time and fall in love, all in the comfort of my bedroom. I l...

Read More

20Aug By Kamlesh Chandra JoshiNo Comments

Alt Shift Archives, Issue 3 - September 2017

बच्चों के बीच किताब : कजरी गाय झूले पर

प्रारंभिक साक्षरता पर काम करते हुए हमें शिक्षण के उद्देश्यों को एक व्यापक फलक पर देखने का प्रयास करना चाहिए| यह समझना चाहिए इन उद्देश्यों में पढ़कर समझ बनाने के साथ एक पाठक बनाने की बात भी शामिल है| कक्षा में किसी पाठ पर काम करने का उद्देश्य केवल इतना ही न हो कि हमने पाठ दिया| उसके प्रश्नोत्तर, अभ्यास पूरे करा दिए| प्रारंभिक साक्षरता पर कक्षा में काम करते हुए कहीं यह ध्येय होना चाहिए कि पढ़ने–लिखने की प्रक्रिया को बच्चे अपने व आसपास के अनुभवों, सोच व कल्पना से जोड़ पाएं| यह कक्षा की प्रक्रियाओं को सार्थक बनाने के लिए तो आवश्यक है| वहीँ किसी पाठ पर समझ बनाने का अभिन्न हिस्सा भी है| इस संदर्भ में बच्चों को पाठक बनाने के लिए उन्हें नियमित पढ़ने के मौके देना व अच्छे बाल साहित्य से परिचित करवाना भी महत्वपूर्ण क्रियाकलाप है| इसमें बच्चे पढ़ने/ सुननेकी प्रक्रिया में जहां कहानी का आनंद ले रहे हो...

Read More

19Aug By Edith Melo FurtadoNo Comments

Alt Shift Archives, Issue 3 - September 2017

A Love that Grows

I grew up at a time when watching an occasional movie at the only theatre in town along with parents and siblings, or friends, was what a day out was all about. There was no other screen viewing, malls, play zones or much money in either parents’ account. But, what might seem to be a mirthless scenario was, in fact, a ‘blessing in disguise’.  My father’s library, replete with an array of books on a variety of subjects was a delight in my growing years. The love of reading was nurtured by my parents who were avid readers, themselves. When the holiday season came, my father would walk with us to Singbal Book House, a significant repository of interesting books during that time, and throw open before us a choice of reading delights. Lavish holidays and amusements were out of bounds, but it wa...

Read More

16Aug By Purnima Rao1 Comment

Axis, Issue 3 - September 2017

Lost & Found

Twelve-year-old Srini skips into the library. “Ma’am you have lost my library card,” she declares chirpily. You, the librarian for the day, are a volunteer who comes in only once a week. You’ve never met Srini before so you can’t take the accusation personally. When cards like hers can’t be traced, there’s a protocol. Hunt in all four card boxes, each one arranged alphabetically. When that fails, as it does now, you launch an investigation. "My card is there somewhere!" “When were you last in?” “Long ago.” Long ago in child time could be one week or three months. “Was it when school vacation began?” “Maybe. I went to gaon after that.” So, May was when she last attended. The hunt is diverted to a box marked ‘retired cards’, where records of children who haven’t come in a whil...

Read More