Rehoming books in Bangalore

‘I have all kinds of medical problems’, said the middle-aged lady. ‘Swollen foot, bad knees, stomach problems… and the doctors said there was nothing they can do!’ She was pleased to find a copy of Home Remedies by TV Sairam among the books spread out on our makeshift free stall.

I was in Bangalore, trying to clear out some space in my parents’ flat. There were decades worth of books on every shelf in every room. On each visit, I had brought a carefully-chosen book for each of my parents, and those had added to the stacks. There were books inherited from my grandmother’s house, with names of long-dead great-aunts and great-uncles, and dates from a century ago. (People had such lovely handwriting in those days!)

There were books written by family and friends:

And some family histories:

In a first pass, skipping all the books with possible sentimental value, I found over 100 books to donate.

Surely someone in the apartment complex of 63 flats would want some? Local freecycling within buildings is uncommon in Bangalore, but my father was charmed by the idea. It would have to be outdoors due to Covid, and there was an empty open garage space downstairs. We got approval from the apartment association president who forwarded our email announcement to everyone in the complex, and we put up flyers.

Several people emailed back to say they would come, and several children accosted my father in the courtyard. “How much will you charge?” They couldn’t quite believe that we were actually giving away the books for free.

Come Sunday, we set up the equivalent of a roadside stall with 3 sections: Adult Fiction, Adult Nonfiction, and Childrens. People drifted in.

Many people, I noticed, started with aspirationally impressive tomes such as ‘The Complete Works of William Shakespeare‘, and then drifted on to the fiction, and eventually left with Ken Follett and Jack Higgins. Even the children picked up Oliver Twist at first, but ended up taking Enid Blyton and Biggles. Did the tomes seem like better bang for the (0) bucks? Or do we all want to appear erudite?

Self-help books were extremely popular. How to find happiness. Words of Wisdom. Yes or No: the guide to making better decisions. Who Moved My Cheese. It wasn’t all aspiring young managers picking these up; one elderly lady told me she was addicted to reading, and especially to business management books. So intriguing.

Religious books were snapped up immediately. The Good News Bible. The Complete Hymn Book. The Words of the Dalai Lama.

One man took The God of Small Things, which he said he had already read in Malayalam. How appropriate! I wonder how Arundhati Roy’s playful language reads and sounds when translated into the language of Kerala where the book is set.

And the first edition hardback Sea of Poppies and Gun Island, which I thought would be the first to go? Languished. No takers for Angela’s Ashes either.

A neighbour we’ve known for decades pounced on the 2000 page Early History of India — who knew she was interested in history?

A young man picked up both the Atul Gawande books for his wife, a doctor.

An elderly man said that he had been a voracious reader, but in the last few years he had switched to ‘the TV and computer, like everyone else’. But he couldn’t resist the sight of all these books, and left with 3 of them.

There were several children playing nearby, but most were not tempted to browse: only a few children were brought by their parents and obligingly picked up a book or two. One dad thanked us for ‘encouraging the kids to read’. Will they, though?

The best part? People stayed and chatted about the flats, their lives, their children.

2 hours later, we had given away only half of the books, but it had been a blast. Now, if only I could convince my parents to donate their vast collection of coffee table books …. alas, no luck so far.

“Books are everywhere; and always the same sense of adventure fills us. Second-hand books are wild books, homeless books; they have come together in vast flocks of variegated feather, and have a charm which the domesticated volumes of the library lack. Besides, in this random miscellaneous company we may rub against some complete stranger who will, with luck, turn into the best friend we have in the world.”

Virginia Woolf