Notes from setting up Ayang Trust Library - Part 1

I’m lying down on a black and red mattress as I write this. Two mattresses, actually. Just finished lunch. Today was a relatively easy day. I got up at seven, made some breakfast and lunch, went grocery shopping, gave instructions to the artist who’s been brought in to do some artwork on the walls. It’s something from a book called Little Laali by Tulika Books I think. I’ve picked out the image where the little girl is getting drenched in the rain. The artist has already sketched the painting and will return tomorrow to do the paintwork. One of the painters is covering the layers of brick and cement with plaster. As we ate lunch, we talked about the rigor that traditional theatre requires. So much is still left to do! I’m seriously wondering if everything would be done by 20th August, the launch date for the library.

A packet as arrived today from Delhi, from Mridula. What a coincidence! I gladly opening it, to discover a treasure of Duckbill books. These would be a wonderful addition to the library. I really hope that someday children start reading these, because these are probably beyond their current reading level. The library here is going to be for everyone. This is a two-room and balcony space for Ayang Trust. On rent, I think. The balcony space is for the library. The place is still under construction so I’ve become involved in decisions like what would be the display area, what the shelves would look like etc. the carpenters here haven’t worked on a project like this before so I’m also getting into finer details like width of the shelves, incline, gap (vertical) between two shelves and so on. It is quite interesting, although exhausting at the same time. The carpenter primarily speaks Assamese/ Mising which I’m totally clueless about. So usually someone is required to translate so that we can communicate. We decide to put shelves on three walls - all on one side (the only permanent/ brick wall side that the room has). I’m a little concerned about the fact that there is a tap very close to one of the shelves (maybe 3-4 ft). I would ideally like to not have the shelf this close to the tap, but we don’t really have much of an option.

Shelves:

• Width: 8”
• Gap: 4”
• Shelf Height: 1 ft/ 1.5 ft

The place has bamboo vegetation all around and that will reflect in the library space as well. 3 out of 4 walls would be partially/ fully made of bamboo structures. On two sides are drop-down bamboo curtains and the third would be a fixed bamboo wall. We’re also going to have plants in the corridor, right next to the stairs,

The teacher in charge here is Rakesh, from The Hummingbird School. He is already familiar with some aspects of the library and is especially excited about displays. He has also done accession numbers for Tulika Books that the team at Ayang Trust has procured.