Hollywood actress Emma Watson has often been touted as a book fairy, for planting books in New York and London subways, and hiding them on the streets of Paris. In fact in 2016, she dropped a 100 copies of Mom & Me & Mom by the late Maya Angelou, as part of Hollie Fraser's Books on the Underground (globally called Books on the Move) initiative, which attempts to encourage people to read books while travelling.
This event that happened thousands of kilometres away struck a chord with Delhi-based Shruti Sharma. An avid-reader herself, Sharma was convinced that Delhi Metro was a space to create a similar network. The idea came to reality in 2017 when Shruti dropped her first book, The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, with the help of her husband Tarun Chauhan.
"As a child, I did not have a lot of books. I love reading but owning books was a luxury. In a way, I grew up chasing books. With Books on the Delhi Metro [her initiative] I wanted everyone to have access to books," says Shruti Sharma.
Take It, Read It, Pass It
For the first three months, Sharma handled this initiative by herself. However, as it caught the public's attention, they started growing with over 40 volunteers joining in. Before the pandemic, the entire team would prepare a schedule for book drops.
Volunteers (called book fairies) would go to a metro station in the city, click a photo of the book, and post it on their social media page with a hint about its location. Once this post was uploaded, they would wait for the book to get picked up by a commuter.
"The first book drop of every book fairy is special. There's anxiety and anticipation all at once. You cannot experience this feeling anywhere else," shares Rashmi Sharma (21), a Dilshad Garden resident, who joined this initiative in 2018.
The process was simple: Take it-Read it-Pass it. If someone found a book they would pick it and take it with them. After it's read, they’d pass it to someone else by dropping the book at any metro station convenient to them, and would inform about this drop through social media.
A change with time
The lockdown was a huge setback for the Books on the Delhi Metro team. With the Delhi Metro closed for about eight months, the team was unsure of how to resume the venture. They then started looking for alternatives and that is when the idea of sending books home to people struck Shruti.
“We started posting books on our page the way we would do before the pandemic and asked questions about the book, which they could answer in the comments. We would then go through the comments and courier the book to the person with the most insightful comment,”says Shruti. “We are planning to resume book drops early next year, given everything stays normal. I hope nothing hampers our plan,” she concludes.