Kitab mahal
Kunal M Shah
Did you know that Manava Naik, the protagonist in Teen Bahuraniyan, has a collection of books numbering over 20,000? She keeps them in her Bandra residence and is in the process of increasing her collection. Manava Naik in her library
Evidently, Manava's family is in the business of printing, first set up by her grandfather. An entire floor of their three-storey bungalow forms a massive library. Says Manava, "My grandfather began collecting books. Besides heritage books that are not be available in bookstores, we have a variety of other books on subjects like history, literature, psychology, drama, films and politics."
Meanwhile, her father, Arun Naik has also acquired a grant from the government to preserve these books. Explaining about the process of preserving these rare books, she says, "It's not easy to preserve the books as some of them are very old. There is a small section where the books are kept wrapped in a special paper so that they don't get damaged. Some of them date as far back as the 17th century and have become so brittle that they can tear easily. We have about 200 such rare books."
These books are undoubtedly very precious to all in the Naik household. Manava says, "There have been a couple of incidents like the 26/7 rains where we almost lost the books in the drama section, as they were kept on the ground floor, but after that we dried every page of the books with a drier and re-bound them."
She adds, "There was yet another time when we had a fire in the house and we somehow managed to stop it from reaching the books."
Her personal favorite subject being literature, she says, "When I was a child, all my friends would come home to borrow books. I, personally collect and buy many books as my father has always been against the idea of borrowing books."
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