The Lending Libraries of Madras

Madras (what to do, I’m still uncomfortable with Chennai and Mumbai) will always have a special place in my life.

- Krishna Kumar Mishra

I was 17, when with a suitcase in hand, first time I walked out of the Madras Central railway station, the huge majestic building, designed with a combination of Gothic and Romanesque styles. It was love at first sight and I felt being part of its history, like a character in any Dickensian novel. Thankfully, I remained one, right from that moment for another four years, as a result of very sincere and pragmatic efforts by some very nice people, whom I met there the first time. In the process I learned so much about the happenings of the century I was born in – certainly the 20th Century was the bloodiest of all.

Madras was the place I grew up intellectually, although I was studying engineering, a dry and bland subject. The credit goes to some private lending libraries, second-hand bookstore owners and some very enthusiastic old people I met; in all of whom I literally saw an abstract image of the captivating song “No matter what the future brings/As time goes by” from the classic film Casablanca. Kamal Haasan was ruling the celluloid; but you could still catch Rajinikanth shooting on Mount Road for Billa, a remake of the 1978 Amitabh Bachchan starrer Hindi movie Don which in 2007 again inspired Meher Ramesh to reremake the same with the same title Billa in Tamil.