Books, stories and a silent revolution: Samaritans take libraries to remote parts of Himachal Pradesh | Education News,The Indian Express
A corporate honcho from Kolkata who quit her job, a financial advisor from Lucknow, a shoe-designer and music enthusiast duo from New Delhi are among those who have found their calling in the hill state
The nearly 8-km trek between the Khurik village to Kaza in the rocky and cold terrain of the Spiti Valley is not an easy one. Tanzin Kinzang, however, makes it look like a cake walk.
All of 10, Kinzang covers the distance almost every day, mostly alone and sometimes with her father. Her destination is a library, aptly named Let’s Open a Book. Kinzang, on her part, has “opened” at least 180 books and took them home to read in just over two months last year. An avid reader she keeps returning for more.
“I love to read stories, but at the primary school in my village, only books that are part of the syllabus are available. When this library came up, I started visiting almost every day. I mostly come alone. Sometimes a friend or cousin tags along,” says Kinzang, who sometimes stays the night at her aunt’s place nearby to reach the library early the next morning.
Ruchi Dhona counts Kinzang returning to borrow more books as nothing less than a reward for her initiative. The 36-year-old from Kolkata, who quit her well-paying corporate job to find her “true calling” during a trip to Lahaul-Spiti in 2017, now has many such returning readers—the library claims to have issued around 5,000 books to over 100 local children.
Like all other things big, Dhona’s library movement started small and only after she noticed during her first trip that the school-going children in the cold desert had never seen a bookstore, forget reading a storybook. Shaken, she returned home, resigned from her job, and launched an NGO—‘Let’s Open a Book’—based in New Delhi.
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