A recent meeting of the reading club at the library.
An email announcing the first meeting of the IMSc reading club went out in November last year amid a flurry of excitement. There was a lot of planning, the organisers printed posters and spammed people with invitations. But cyclone Michaung struck, throwing cold water on their plans. Even while wading in knee-deep water, people kept asking if the reading club meeting was on, says Hareesh, a PhD student and one of the club’s many organisers. This eagerness, shining through the occasional cynicism, has kept the club rolling since its debut in January. It is a place where books are sometimes an excuse to meet people, share stories and have a good chuckle.
The reading club meets once every two weeks, where the discussion is loosely based around a theme. It is difficult to find one book that everyone likes, so this format works better as anyone can pitch in. The first meeting invited people to talk about a book they would recommend to others and the hype drew in more than twenty faculty and students. But there was an air of formality about it, which has faded in the following meetings, brightening the conversation among a smaller group of people.
‘Short stories’ was the theme of the meeting that I attended, where people were encouraged to bring a copy of a book they wanted to talk about. Seven of us sat around the long table on the second floor of the library, where the meetings usually take place. “Initially we thought it would be hard to get access to that space, but when we spoke to the librarian, he was more than happy to bring in some activity,” Hareesh says.
We pretty much threw the theme out of the window right from the beginning. There were conversations about the books we are reading, genres and authors we love and hate, our inability to read, and our determination to not like books we haven’t read. There was even a friendly introduction to magic realism and postmodern literature, with hilarious anecdotes going around. We did bounce the ball back to the theme every now and then, talking about short stories by classic Russian authors, Saki, Ted Chiang’s science fiction, Jhumpa Lahiri and RK Narayan, wondering if people aren’t writing as many short stories these days. We also talked about writing in Indian languages, where there was excitement about Satyajit Ray’s Professor Shonku, and the incredible life of the Marathi author Achyut Godbole. This happens very often, conversations soar and expand to discussions around books and reading, comics, movies or life in general. A courageous few make notes and diligently document the references that come up in the unwieldy conversation.
The last meeting had no theme to it. Was it anarchy, I ask. “It was actually amazing,” Hareesh replies. “It started with a detective novel and then went to many topics like graphic novels, comics, superhero movies,” he says. “I think the last 15 minutes of almost every meeting is people talking about random things - it is almost like a therapy session.”
The friendly neighbourhood reading club is always looking for new themes to discuss and ideas for other interesting sessions to organise. If you have any ideas, write to hareeshj[at]imsc[dot]res[dot]in or nmitra[at]imsc[dot]res[dot]in, drop by the next meeting and jump into the conversation.
