Bookworm

by Geetha Hariharan | August 23, 2011

This is a quiet week at the National Law School of India University (“ the NLS”). Frenzied project-writing is at a lull, except for the first years. They have been labouring constantly, chased mercilessly by orientations, projects, exams, and event organisation. They are – a sizable number of them – permanent fixtures in the library.

You would think this is normal. Hardly. To many people at NLS, the library is a necessary evil. It is entered reluctantly, sat in uncomfortably, and left with relief. The wi-fi Internet, falling academic standards (every teacher’s lament, and a roaming battle-cry at every year’s election), possibly peer pressure (“she sits in the library all day!”, in often belittling tones), and possibly laziness combine to make the library a rather unpopular place to visit, unless you are at wits’ end regarding projects.

I only say: how much you miss! The library is a beautiful place; a haven for lost souls, a jamboree for social ones, a temple for quiet ones. 

The NLS library.

Image above (and on article thumbnail ) courtsey the author.

Let me not fool you. The building is a monstrosity. You know what popular opinion (my ‘feminist’ friends will cringe and glare) has to say about unattractive women: “all angles and corners”? There is no description more apposite of our library. It is built weirdly, with a conical front thrusting conspicuously and obnoxiously into a permanently cloudy sky. In the front stretches out a tiled bridge (fondly called the library ‘ramp’; the term makes me shudder: where, I ask, is the definitional requirement of an incline? And I definitely don’t see electrical waveforms either), where gatherings both social and private are a daily occurrence. Inside, you will notice shelves and shelves (and shelves) of books, cubicles and tables and chairs, stairs and the windows.

The shelves are arranged more inefficiently than not, but I suspect the inefficiency comes with the building’s design. They are awkwardly arrayed in the middle of each of the three floors, away from walls, and are filled to the brim with books on ‘shoes and ships and sealing wax’. Cubicles dot the length of each high-ceilinged floor; their claustrophobia is matched only by the extent of privacy they offer. The tables generally seat four (two on each side), but if you are like me, you will hog the entire length on one side, and glare surreptitiously at anyone who tries to sit on the other side.

But really, there are two things that strike you when you enter the library: the stairs (because there are two – leading upstairs and downstairs – right in front of you, and because one of them has recently acquired red carpeting) and the windows. What about them, you may wonder. Aren’t these architectural normalities – necessities, even? Not at this scale, they’re not. The stairs are big and wide and lovely. Walking on them makes you feel as though you were floating on air, and the banisters call irresistibly to you to slide down them, almost breaking your legs and neck if you go too fast. The windows – oh, the library is all windows! An entire side of the wall, and portions of other walls besides, is all window and no wall. Light streams blessedly in during the day and the one-way window-mirrors encourage narcissism after sundown. The impression of sheer, unbridled space, large and empty and free, is permanent.

Every time you see it from the outside, from the tree-lined path to the men’s hostels, from the often-bustling eateries, from the quiet road by the side of the women’s hostel (for these border the library from a distance), you feel that Howard Roark is squirming somewhere in his literary grave.

But that’s okay: beauty is in the eye of the beholder. My roommate, for example, is convinced I’m crazy because I think the library is ugly. There is one thing, though, that all of us who populate and crowd the library at all times of the year agree on: there’s no place like it, really. Not if you want to study, socialise and make friends, enjoy a quiet film, or just sit and contemplate. It is one of those rare places that allow you solitude and camaraderie effortlessly and with ease.

While project-writing is an inevitably undertaken library-activity, the library affords a lot more pleasure and fun than the image of a dry, crackly workplace gives. Our library (all libraries) is misunderstood, just as museums are. There is more to her than books and reading, and I see that everyday. People gather in droves for conversations both trivial and important. From law to philosophy to politics, travel, poetry, Harry Potter fan-fiction and the best pub/restaurant in town, every law school legend you will hear of knights and dames in shining armour (law school ‘studs’) will involve escapades, or a lifetime spent, in the library. Legends and life-lessons are handed down from batch to batch, in true oral tradition, in the shade of the library.

Not only that; much real learning of the law (and other subjects) happens in the library. Apart from projects or the rare, motivated self-learning, all moots and mooters worship the library. Truly, that is one time in law school I have seen people enter it voluntarily and with enthusiasm. The moot rooms, in the basement of the library, are a veritable hive of activity and excitement during the second trimester, when most moots are under way. Books are read and used and photocopied and underlined, conversations and effort and learning abundant, and the library is alive!

All angles and corners.

Image above courtesy the author.

The best – and my favourite – time in the library is the hours past normal opening hours. After midnight, the library belongs to mooters, and our lives so spent are the gladdest I have ever known. Two of the most un-librarymole-like persons I know who moot (whose favourite haunts are local Nagarbhavi terrace bars) exhibit these symptoms after midnight. And at night, when there are fewer people around, the library breathes and engulfs you, and the silence is deeper, happier and more fulfilling than any yelling elsewhere. It allows you time and space and solitude to think, and that is so hard to come by in law school.

But as with everything, library-tales change. An alumnus once told us that the ground where the library now stands was ‘kurukshetra’, a battleground for football and night-time privacy. Coming back to find it usurped is a funny feeling, he says. I felt the same way when we acquired plants in the library. The old library used to be housed in the academic block, back in its heyday and probably its cause. There were fewer books then, fewer online resources. And yet, you will hear, there was greater motivation to learn, to travel to libraries around the country for moot-research. Now, we have it all at our fingertips, and we neglect it all, goes the lament.

For all the greener grass and the possible exaggeration, there is some truth in that. At law school today, we have become complacent, riding on past glory. More than learning, we strive to pass courses with as little real effort as possible (and take pride in that), and to begin fifth year with a plum job and no (or deferred, or forsaken) real dreams.

You may not like the idea of spending your lifetime in the library, or the idea that it is seen to be studly to do so, and you would be entirely justified. It may not be home, but it is an integral part of learning at law school. I only beseech that you not carry your objections to ridiculous proportions by refusing to step inside the library, or entering with rigid distaste. Come sparingly, but come with an open mind and without prejudice (both so rare in law school). Maybe, just maybe, you will actually enjoy your time here. Even if you’re uncomfortable admitting that, why forego the actual joy itself?

Geetha Hariharan is in the fourth year at the N.L.S.I.U., Bangalore.