Our desire to find like-minded people is far stronger than the wonted belief that opposites attract. For the Broke Bibliophiles – Chennai Chapter, it was a shared love for the written word and the desire to support independent bookstores that brought them together. And boy oh boy, do they love their books! Holed up in the corner of a small cafe, the biblichor emanating from the tall stack of books and the intense passion is what draws one to them.
When his friend created the group in 2016 and left town, Solomon Manoj, an HR Executive with Cognizant became its organiser by default. On hearing that Giggles, a bookstore run by Nalini Chettur was served a summons to relocate from its home of 42 years in Vivanta by Taj, Solomon couldn’t stand idly by. "To most large-scale bookstores, books are just a commodity. Giggles is different. Nalini lives with her books and knows each and every one of them. As a book club, we have a responsibility to support small bookstores and libraries. We’ve been spreading the word so that people can buy books from here," he says. The group looked to their organiser, Solomon and his friend Deepan Anand had kept Giggles afloat, they agreed. "To say that Deepan buys books would be an understatement," quipped Malini Ravi, who was another volunteer at Giggles.
For these book lovers, buying and sharing books is the answer to keeping the industry alive and they make it a point to do so. And anyone calling themselves a bibliophile will find joy in Broke Bibliophiles’s meetings, "I have kids back home, but I find time every weekend for these meetings," says lawyer Divya Sreedharan, and her friend Priyanka Kotian adds, "It's very flexible. We meet in places that are accessible to everyone." It’s simple things like this that give people that little extra push of motivation to attend meeting, members note.
Abruptly, the conversation comes to a halt when a man enters the room with a tote bag full of books. Vishy, a book blogger hands out copies of This House of Clay and Water, authored by his friend Faiqa Mansab, leaving the group squealing with joy. "I love lending and gifting books," he says. "I love how happy it makes people.”
It has to be this shared sense of joy that keeps the group so strong. "People who genuinely love to read will stay, it's as simple as that," opines Lavanya Arun, who runs a start-up in Bengaluru. And as they continue to discuss their favourite books of the month and the books that they wished they had bought, it is evident that the meeting of this chapter is far from over.
