SALEM: As a timid boy in Porbandar, young Gandhi rarely spoke to classmates, writes Sneha Sivashanmugam of The New Indian Express.
Textbooks were once his only companions, yet he held no love for the written word beyond what was required for class — until the day he picked up a play about sacrifice. That simple story didn’t just move him; it transformed him. For a boy who used to sprint home from school to escape conversation, reading became a powerful sanctuary.
More than a century later, in the town of Mecheri near Mettur, Salem, that same quiet determination resurfaced. Two young friends took a quiet resolution on August 15, 2017: to read a few pages every single day. No excuses. The first book one of them picked up was the Tamil version of the same autobiography that chronicled Gandhi’s early awakenings — The Story of My Experiments with Truth. And just like Gandhi discovered worlds beyond his immediate, familiar life — so did Kathiravan Rathinavel and his friend.
Two soon turned into four, and four quickly swelled to ten. As the circle expanded beyond single digits, the group migrated to WhatsApp to stay connected. To keep the momentum alive, they established a golden rule: every day, members had to post their name, the title of the book in hand, and the page count. Silence spoke volumes: it was a tacit admission that the pages had gone unturned. Eventually, the community outgrew the intimate confines of a chat app, and the movement found a new, larger home on Facebook.
Kathiravan, the founder of the collective, says the name came almost instantly: “I just typed Vasipai Nesipom. It stayed and became the identity of our entire community.”
From there, Vasipai Nesipom evolved quickly. A regular 30-day reading challenge took shape, supported by book reviews, and lively discussions. Themes were introduced in later years — everything from social justice to ideologies to anime — allowing readers to explore new terrains without losing the joy of choice. The Covid pandemic and the subsequent lockdowns in 2020 were an unexpected turning point. Children were added to the mix, and families shared books at home. A YouTube channel followed. Annual reading goals were introduced — 30 books or at least 3,000 pages — and soon, writers, publishers, district collectors and even retired judges began engaging with the community and offering support. Later, annual meet-ups, mostly in Chennai, brought together people who had known each other only through messages.
By 2023, Vasipai Nesipom was ready to experiment further. The group encouraged slower, deeper reading. Then came their most distinctive initiative: reading tours. The idea emerged from a worry that many historical sites were quietly fading from public memory. Members felt that if these places were vanishing, they should at least read about them, visit them, and document what they found. They chose a destination, picked books linked to its history, archaeology or inscriptions, and read before they travelled. On the ground, members with kalvettu expertise interpreted inscriptions. They visited Adichanallur, Kancheepuram and several other sites. During the Adichanallur visit, then Thoothukudi collector K Senthilraj, who was inspecting the area, paused to appreciate their effort. Some locations were not open to public, but the group still secured special permissions. One such visit was to a centuries-old Jain temple in Kancheepuram believed to contain ancient paintings and sculptures.
They even created community T-shirts for the tours. Their next trip, Kathiravan says, is planned for Keezhvenmani, where they plan to hold a reading session in remembrance of Dalit labourers who were massacred by a gang, allegedly led by their landlords. During their weekly short-story discussions, writers occasionally drop in, adding new layers to familiar texts. But ‘Mission Venmurasu’ is their most ambitious undertaking yet. “We are reading Jeyamohan’s 26-volume, 22,400-page epic Venmurasu. Each of us reads about 1,000 words a day. After every book, we meet online to discuss it. Two years in, we have reached the 9th volume, with 70 active readers still going strong,” Kathiravan says.
The project was inspired by a French community that took 15 years to read one long novel together. If all goes well, the group expects to complete Venmurasu by May 2029.
For Priyadarshini Gopal, a software engineer who joined the reading collective in 2019, the community brought an unexpected shift. Many women hesitated to join mixed-group tours, and families were unsure about safety. To address this, organisers planned an exclusive women’s trip to Munnar in Kerala. Twenty-two women from across Tamil Nadu travelled together, trekking, reading and talking without constraints. “Many opened up,” she says. “Those two days felt like a space where women could simply be themselves.”
Today, Vasipai Nesipom is far removed from its modest origin. What began with two friends and a daily promise has grown into a vibrant reading community with more than 92,000 Facebook members. A small Independence Day pact has become a wide, welcoming movement — one that continues to learn, explore and read, as if it has all the time in the world.
(Edited by Adarsh TR)
