– Mohammed Atherulla Shariff
The warning ‘reading may seriously damage your ignorance’ has gone well with some people in Bangalore who are scared to be victims of ignorance. They assemble at the Bangalore International Centre in Domlur every month to explore titles outside of their usually preferred sort.
‘Blind Date With a Book’ is idea behind, which is picking up these days. Another urge in them is to engage the people around, promote audience interaction and develop a sense of community. Blind Date With a Book is a novel way to promote books. A library or bookstore or friend will wrap several books and then write clues on each one. You pick the one that matches your mood based on the clues, unwrap it, and go on a date with it by reading it.
Two activists Lekha Naidu and Sneha Joshi conduct this event jointly to defeat the psyche that reading habit has declined after the cell phone arrival. Rather they have different experience. The meet has resulted in the formation of a friendship outside of the meet-ups, says Sneha.
‘It is great to see complete strangers with nothing in common sharing ideas and having robust connections,’ feels Lekha.
Participants come with the books they have read and were moved by. The books are wrapped to hide the title and name of the author. However, they should write a note on the reason behind their choice. The event begins with participants forming a circle and reading out an excerpt that touched with them, without spelling out the name of the book. Then they are paired up or draw names from a bowl to decide who gets which book.
This way people being exposed to a variety of books and different authors they were unaware of. It helps to expand one’s scope and open one’s eyes to different topics. To keep the event intimate, it is restricted to 20 people at a time. Frequency of the event has been enhanced to accommodate more book lovers.
The event that lasts little over an hour is held in the library of BIC. It also provides an exposure to the library and the Centre as such. BIC is a cultural and intellectual hub spread over half an acre area. It houses an art gallery, a library, an auditorium, conference hall and cafeteria.
