A number of senior citizen organisations in Nashik have benefited from the ‘Pustak Petis’ (boxes full of books) circulating in Nashik city.
Bhavana Vispute, a wheelchair-bound resident of Nashik was delighted when a trunk full of 100 Marathi books on a variety of subjects reached her home.
She was unable to visit a library to pursue her love for reading and to her delight, the library itself arrived at her doorstep. She not only enjoyed the books herself, but also distributed them in the neighbourhood to friends and family.
A number of senior citizen organisations in Nashik have also benefited from the ‘Pustak Petis’ (boxes full of books) circulating in Nashik city.
Launched under the Grantha Tumchya Dari (books at your doorstep) initiative under the aegis of Kusumagraj Pratishthan two years ago, this project has now gained considerable popularity. It has expanded to include corporate offices and industrial units and has received a good response. It is also being run in Pune and will soon be introduced in Thane.
The Grantha Tumchya Dari project was conceived by Nashik-based printer, Vinayak Ranade, who has been very active in the city’s cultural environment.
Ranade single-handedly collected substantial donations from the public for the Kusumagraj Smarak simply by wishing people on their birthdays.
“In this way, I collected a large container for drinking water, tables, chairs and office equipment for the Smarak. That was the time when one donor gave Rs10 lakh for a library at the Smarak,” Ranade said. This memorial was established in the memory of the great Marathi litterateur and Dnyanpeeth awardee, Kusumagraj alias VV Shirwadkar.
The next step was to increase the number of books in the library, so once again, Ranade requested people to donate a book or two on their birthdays. “This gave birth to the concept of pustak peti or a box full of books,” Ranade said.
While the books are given free of cost to all to read, the rotational cost is borne by Kusumagraj Pratishthan. The cost of one set of 100 books works out to about Rs15,000, which is raised entirely through donations. The books are sent to people who cannot come to the library. After all the books in one set are read, it is replaced with another set.
Nashik today has 60 such trunks full of books circulating across the city. One location where the trunks are in high demand is the Central Jail.
“When we started the project at the Central Jail, it was Kavita Karkare, widow of the late anti-terrorism squad chief, Hemant Karkare, who donated a bag of books in the memory of her martyred husband,” Ranade said.
Some weeks ago, the idea was extended to circulate a trunk full of books for children. Vishwas Co-op Bank chairman, Vishwas Thakur, offered his bank premises for the project and undertook the responsibility of distributing the books to kids.
Eight such trunks are now in circulation in eight branches of the bank, where children of account holders visit to borrow books and again to exchange them.
Impressed by the idea, entrepreneur NT Ahire of Machine House and Marut Industries, extended the concept for the benefit of his factory workers. His example was followed by some other small scale industrialists.
“This idea of making books available to people with ease is excellent. The life of a person working in a factory revolves mostly around his work. He has less time and opportunity to enrich himself. Books made available to him easily will definite enrich his life,” said industrialist, Sudhir Mutalik.
“The entire exercise is done with the hope of creating a better society through better human beings,” Ranade said.
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