KOCHI: T K Mohan, owner of Mohan’s Lending Library at Press Club Road, passed away on Thursday.
The library, set up by Mohan in the late 1950s at the then T B Road, is one of the oldest lending libraries in the State.
He was a close friend of renowned writer the late Vaikom Muhammad Basheer. Mohan had maintained good relationship with most of the prominent personalities in the fields of art, culture and politics.
The cremation will be held at the Pachalam Public Crematorium at 11.00 am on Friday. He is survived by wife Anila and children Sooraj, Ranjith and Ajith.
The lending library owned by the deceased, though stopped functioning five years ago, holds a prominent position in the minds of Kochiites. The Press Club Road was known as T B Road when Mohan opened the library in the 1950s. The first such facility in Kerala, a specialty of Mohan’s library was its huge collection of English books.
T B Road was the heart of Kochi in the 1950’s, and was home to M P Studio, Mohan’s Lending Library, NBS, Current Books, CICC Books and the Basotta Lodge, making it the favourite spot for the then politicians.
Most of the cultural and literary personalities of that era were regular visitors to T B Road, including Thakazhy, N V Krishna Warrier, Ponjikkara Rafi, T K C Vaduthala and Tatapuram Sukumaran. Mohan’s library was a ‘stop-over’ for most of them.
Mohan himself had a strong friends circle, and had good knowledge of English literature.
He used to come to the library on bicycle from his house at Pachalam. The cycle journey was a true representation of the Kochi of yesteryear.