Inside a community library run by Pratham

If you ask the grownups going about their business in the lanes of Mustafabad in east Delhi to direct you to your destination, they won’t be of much help. But the children, they know. They will show you the road to the Room of Stories. It’s a big room, rather dark and housed in a building that is as dreary as any in this dreariest of neighbourhoods. This is where you will find

11-year-old Mehnaaz every afternoon after school, reading stories and making up some—with sister Nishaat and other children of the locality.

You could, if you wish, call the Room of Stories by a drabber name. It is, after all, one of the 90-odd community libraries run by the NGO Pratham in several bastis in Delhi for children of poor parents. The libraries are different from the ones Mehnaaz and her friends find in their schools. For one, the cupboards are never locked here. Books here can be taken out, held, smelt and touched. Pictures pored over, stories acted out.

So, what did Mehnaaz read this year? She’s a little shy at first, this gangly girl with sharp eyes, but soon bursts forth. Panchatantra, Birbal ki Kahaniya, Zubi ka Janmdin, Abu aur Bari Hawa and the Story of the Rabbit Who Asked His Mother For Kheer.

Which one’s that? Little Rabbit wanted kheer but said his mother, “There’s no rice my son, no milk nor sugar.” The clever little Rabbit had a plan. He piled the Cow, the Elephant and the Deer with sweet words and sweeter flattery and they agreed to help him. The Cow gave some milk, the Elephant sugarcane and the Deer parted with rice. Then came the Wolf, hungry for kheer. “Why don’t you do what I did, the rabbit tells him,” says Mehnaz, her eyes as bright as a rabbit’s. “Par bheriye ko kahan pata tha meethe bol bolna? Usne sab ko jake dhamkaya. Use kya milaa?” The Cow landed him a kick, the Elephant another and the Dainty Deer the final blow that broke the wolf’s back.

... contd.