SRINAGAR, May 12: It was set up in 1985, when Kashmir was peaceful. Then the bloody rebellion came, heralding decades of bullets and bombs in the valley. But all the while, a small dusty shop, unnoticed on the Moulana Azad Road in Srinagar, braved everything to keep Kashmir’s literature safe.
Kitab Ghar sold books; which sang songs of peace and told tales of the turbulent days.
Now things are changing and guns have fallen almost silent. But the bookshop has not let its guard loose in preserving Kashmir’s culture as modernisation is sinking in, threatening every bit of what Kashmir was ever proud of.
“This is a sale outlet not for ordinary books, but for books which contain Kashmir’s rich cultural heritage,” says Mohammad Ashraf Tak, editor of the Shiraz magazine-published by the Jammu and Kashmir Academy of Art and Culture.
“Since 1958, Cultural Academy had large publications in various languages. And our aim was to create an outlet, where people from cross section of society could sit, chat, scan and purchase books related to state’s heritage and culture,” he says.
““This place was created for promotion of state’s art, culture and language. And Kitab Ghar fully served and is serving its purpose.”
‘Regaining the Past’
The Kashmiri language has been the worst victim of modernisation. Even the authorities, sensing that the language was in its last throes, have now made its study compulsory in schools.
But the unattractive looks of Kitab Ghar wouldn’t do enough to pull youngsters towards reading their own rich literature.
The Cultural Academy, which looks after promotion of Kashmiri literature, had plans of modifying the shop into a coffee house of sorts, which was prominent among Kashmiri intelligentsia before it closure in the early nineties.
And for many, the news of its revival was a return to their past and an end to a long wait.
Subhan Qadri, 80, who was a frequent visitor to the coffee house of the eighties said, “It has been like a prison for me all these years.”
But the dim book store with its wooden shelves still wears an archaic look and there are no signs of its restoration.
“They had even sanctioned the money for the coffee shop. But then the secretary of the academy was changed and the plan was shelved,” says an employee at the Kitab Ghar. “Nobody pursued it then.”
But Qadri believes that the “glorious old days” will return. “And return soon,” he says.
