Eloor — A lore, lost in time
How many places that you know of haven’t changed from the first time you saw it as a kid ? Not many, right ? Even fewer seem to be actively resisting the change, and that might be why those that do are endearing in a way. In a parallel to how party offices of the Left have maintained their layout, parippuvadas (dalvada) and Dinesh Beedis from their heyday; Eloor library is lost in theirs.
Nestled in the floor between Shalu’s Beauty Palour and Rajadhani Fashions in Press Club Road. The 40 year-old lending library once described by an acquaintance as “that dingy place without ventilation” still manages to live on despite not equipping their books with RFID tags or digitizing shelf-space. Perhaps, the very idea of keeping up with the times seems ironic to an establishment that lends out physical books when the Kindle, libgen and the long tail of e-commerce are in the here and now.
Yet, I have found myself frequenting this place in the past few months, which was surprising since I’m not particularly smitten by the smell of books or the feel of their pages. Anyhow, I was back at this haunt from my childhood after spending close to 7 years away from it, which on second thought might exactly be why it was one of the few public spaces (that wasn’t absolutely essential) that I allowed myself to visit during these pandemic months.
The pandemic and resultant social distancing is a strange experience for our brains, especially ones dealing with the contrast of being ensconced in a campus of 1000+ people to suddenly be left alone with just immediate family. Add an on/off relationship with social media to that, and you have your brain filling in the deficiency for Dunbar’s number (150) with people whom you may not have noticed much otherwise but are now high up in the rankings of frequently encountered— like your vegetable seller, the security guard of your apartment block or Vishnu chettan.
Vishnu chettan is one of the nodes of Eloor’s Location and Recommendation Engine, and although this algorithm might lack the finesse of Amazon’s, it isn’t optimized to maximize order value (Yes, really, they have upper limits to combined value of books issued) but instead wants to ensure that you have a good time reading and will keep going back. Also, Alexa might now be able to crack a joke on the book you buy, but it can’t give you a knowing smile when you finish reading a gargantuan classic, at least, not yet.
Every time I run up the small stairwell, I can’t help but think for how long these trips will be possible, business models better suited to our times, even in lending (like Kwench) are only getting bigger and better. Though the library at Kochi doesn’t face an immediate threat owing it to its small but dedicated clientele, Eloor itself has had to cut down their branches from 7 to 3 on account of dwindling patronage elsewhere. Therefore, by the looks of it, the day it changes shape unrecognizably and flies up to the cloud or fails to do so and shuts shop doesn’t look too far away; and that day will erase one of the few remaining markers of childhood for me and several others whose got a first taste of literature from this lovely-little relic.
