Persia in the shelf. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] There are worlds concealed in the remote corners of public libraries. Few citizens venture that far. The books lie untouched, like artifacts raised from a wreck, awaiting rediscovery. One such world rests inside the library of the Ghalib Academy in central Delhi. Metal shelves hold thousands of volumes in Urdu and Farsi, with a scattering in English—bearing titles as unexpected as Soviet Cinema Today. Among them sits an extraordinary book: Persia: The Immortal Kingdom (photo shows library staffer Taslima holding the same). The book opens with a portrait of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, captioned, “His Imperial Majesty, Shahanshah of Iran.” Published in 1971, the hardbound volume was commissioned by the Shah to mark

Portrait of a book hoarder. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Ali Asghar Shah has a problem. He loves to read, and he loves to buy books. But these days, he doesn’t get enough time to read. Not only because he has a busy day-job as a senior marketing manager, but also because of that attention-hijacking device called mobile. “I read a page or two of a book, and then I find myself turning to my phone to check a WhatsApp message, or watch a video on YouTube…” There was a time when Ali would read books on his bed till late into the night. He still lies awake on the bed till late into the night, but usually ends up watching movies

Shrine to words. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Washed laundry is drying in the porch. The bungalow truly looks ordinary, here in Gurgaon's Sector 14. A jaali door opens into a corridor illumined in the afternoon light. Spotting the staircase inside gives the first jolt. It is littered with neat stacks of books. Up the stairs, the veranda is wholly crammed with books. So is the drawing room. So are the two bedrooms. The kitchen, too. Books claim beds, sofas, tables and chairs. This private library is the work of a lifetime. At 84, the antiquarian bookseller Vijay Kumar Jain is warming up to the theme of retirement. His long relationship with “old, rare books on South Asia in general and

Shrine to words. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] The radiologist seems to unite some of the best blessings of existence. He lives in a Sector 50 high-rise in Noida, sharing a spacious apartment with his parents, his wife—a dermatologist—and their two children. The bed in his bedroom is of Burma teak wood, inherited from his late grandmother, who had acquired it when she lived in Burma. And then Sushant Mittal has something more. His bedroom has a wooden case filled with books. This is his library. Last week, a college library in the capital caught fire; thousands of books at Pitampura’s Sri Guru Gobind Singh College of Commerce were burned to ashes. It was a short circuit accident, and fortunately no injuries

Home to precious editions. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Every spot and corner is awash with utmost silence. The library at the India International Centre is so quiet that the awareness of one’s own breathing feels intrusive. Even so, the chief librarian’s disapproving notice, stuck close to the Air Quality Index Meter, observes that ‘we have been receiving number of complaints from users of the library that level of noise has increased considerably in the premises...” This afternoon, the IIC’s members-only library is half-full. Everyone is motionless, while the book-less world outside the library’s glass wall is looking other-worldly. With her back to those exteriors, a white-haired woman is absorbed in a slim novel, a slight smile lighting up her face.

Sealed with a love. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Let us sing in praise of inscriptions. The ones encountered on the opening pages of used books, scrawled by hands perhaps long dead. Indeed, in Delhi’s legendary Sunday Book Bazar, secondhand books on sale often bear such personalised words—sometimes written by the book’s owner, sometimes as dedications jotted by the person gifting the book to a friend or relative. Reading these lines, composed in confidence by a person unknown to us, spawns multiple feelings. Is the person who wrote them still alive? What circumstances made this book homeless? Here are some of the many inscriptions encountered over the years at Sunday Book Bazar. No single jotting tells a complete story, but

Ghalib's calling cards. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Delhi’s book-filled Ghalib Academy Library overlooks poet Ghalib’s tomb. The library is doubly noteworthy for its two large handsome wooden cabinets. They preserve something rare. Each cabinet is arrayed out into scores of long drawers. Each drawer contains stacks of so-called note cards. Slightly larger than a standard-issue visiting card, the card traditionally constituted a public library’s most basic building block, commanding an architecture of its own. Pull open any drawer. Every card within has a hole punched through its centre. Look more carefully—a slim steel chord installed in the drawer is running through the hole of each card, keeping all in place. Every one of these cards corresponds to a book

Living with rare editions. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Goosebumps! This Delhi apartment is crammed with rare editions. Collecting these is Ashok’s “janoon,” his passion. Like any committed Delhi bibliophile, he first tasted blood for prized volumes in the city’s legendary Sunday Book Bazar. This afternoon, the former furniture-maker picks out five books from his horde of hardbounds (leaving out many others that are equally precious). He sportingly agrees to pose with the selection--along with wife, the gentle Parag, who gives her name to their publishing house. Constitution of India Perhaps the most historic souvenir of contemporary India, only a thousand copies were published of this large lavishly produced and artistically illustrated hardbound. The final pages include the “photolithographed” reproductions of