THIRUVANANTHAPURAM : Poojappura’s old-world charm is as well-known as is evident. So is the beauty of its geography through the road from the famed mandapam through Mudavanmugal, ending at a romantic hilltop from where the city could be seen in full view.
The serenity of the stretch, however, does not come in the way of the area becoming a centre of activities even on weekends when the rest of the city might be dozing off in a holiday stupor.
One hub of such activities is the Poojappura Yuvajana Samajam Granthashala, which is celebrating its 75th year now.
It was in 1949 that the library was set up by a group of socially motivated youth in a rented shop. Those were the days when P N Panicker’s Vayanashala movement was at its peak, and with its help, the library further established itself as a stopover for the youth of those days who wanted to learn and grow.
Some of the early members of the library who later went on to make a mark in social and literary life were Thirunainar Kurichi Madhavan Nair, whose Aatma Vidyalayame is a hallmark sung even now as a classic. Other members included writer P K Parameswaran Nair and playwright Kainikkara Kumara Pillai.
The library also served as a reference section to many youth of the day, including girls who had curbs in visiting public places. The library helped them procure some of the books they needed for their academic study.
“Several of them passed out with flying colours, got jobs as school and college teachers and are now retired and longtime patrons of the library,” says G Radhakrishnan, president of the library.
Over the years, the library was shifted to a school building housed on government land and still functions there. It has over 25,000 books in stock, wide reference sections, subscriptions to about 75 periodicals and 13 dailies, and about 1,000 active members.
The membership that was once around 7,000 may have come down due to several factors. Yet separate reference sections based on the genre of books, neatly arranged in racks with glass doors, and meticulous cataloguing is a benchmark still followed here.
The library has won awards too, including awards for best library at the taluk and the district level and one from the Kannur District Library Council. It is also one of its kind that publishes a quarterly titled Grandhavani, which is now a full-fledged magazine carrying social, academic and literary features.
The founding members are no more, except for T Krishnan Nair who is now 93. Till about 2020 when Covid struck, he was a regular at the library. Also a kathakali make-up artist, he retired from the textbooks department and knew how to bind books. He used to take the new books from the library and bind them for us free of cost, says Radhakrishnan.
The library also has a stock of activities it offers the public to cover all sections of society. Its Vanitha-Vayojana Pusthaka Vitharana Padhathi (book distribution scheme) has its members take books to houses in the neighbourhood and lend them to the elderly and women who cannot come to the library.
“The scheme was started to popularise reading habits among homemakers and has been growing in popularity. “We now have 235 members in this scheme,” a library officer-bearer says.
Another highlight is the Happiness Forum, where elders congregate on the last Wednesday of every month to share their books and notes, and even to enjoy good music under the programme ‘Ormakodi kalikkuvan’. This apart, Balavedi, Vanithavedi, SHG groups that give vocational training to women, etc., are the projects that the library embarks on.
Despite all such activities being organised in the library and it being a landmark long enough to hit the platinum jubilee, the infrastructure of the institution does not match its legacy, say the office-bearers. The biggest roadblock in its path to being the new-age library is the building, they say, which is a tin-roofed one.
The library explained its plans to expand into a hub of literary and social activities recently during the inauguration of its one-year platinum jubilee celebration, which was attended by Education Minister V Sivankutty.
“At the event, we also announced the formation of seven committees that will look into different sectors of outreach such as social welfare, culture, academics, sports, finance, and health,” says Radhakrishnan.
“We also discussed the need for digitisation facilities to make the library fit for new-age reading. We cannot do it with the existing infrastructure. Once we get the title deed for the five-and-a-half cent government land the building stands on, we can source government funds and expand the library to its full potential.”