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Library....

A library gives me goosebumps. I dont know why that is so, but every time I visit a library, I am transfixed at the possibilities.

One of my earliest photos has me with a book on my lap (and I distinctly remember the smell of the book). I cannot recall when I first visited a library - but I was hooked. It was a ramshackle set of shelves and some books falling off, but that was enough. The shelf in my native village that had old books with their pages falling off was enough. The municipal library that was hardy a library was good enough.

And then as I went to college - those libraries were just so amazing. One of them was housed in an art deco old building and had archaic rules to issue books, but that made it all the more fun. The next was in a new building but had a good collection of books. One of the companies where I worked for a project had a voluminous library where I spent most of my Saturdays. One of the companies where I worked had spent a lot of money to make a huge library and I for sure made good use of it. Indeed a few weeks ago, I visited the NID library in Ahmedabad and it was a heart stopping moment for me.

Now that I think of it, actually I have made good use of libraries everywhere where there was one.

Cut to the present. I enrolled myself as a member into a large library and it was like a walk down memory lane. Which memory lane I do not know. But the walk through tree lined roads, cobble stoned paths and finally into a cavernous library is just so magical. It is deja vu, it is magic, it is promise, it is calming...it is everything...

The effort of searching books. The magic of finding it on a shelf. The fun of leafing through pages. The discovery of a sentence that is magical...

Yes, I love libraries...

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