Footloose stories from a free world
Last February I received an invite from a small community library in Lohit, a remote district in Arunachal Pradesh, to participate in their community book festival. I was also asked to conduct a training and help set up a sustainability knowledge centre. My initial reaction was: “Should I travel to another corner of the country for a purely outreach activity when critical sales planning and strategy presentations lay ahead of me? But when the organizer called back saying "Don't just give up on us because we are in the far North East...we are also a part of India", I changed my mind and started for Lohit. What a journey it was! I met some of the most diverse tribal communities and experienced their warm-heartedness. Everywhere I went, children were eager to know about mainland India. I also got to travel on "Library on Wheels”, a mobile bus library run by the old but passionate and driven Uncle Musa, a local library promoter. Together we drove daily, through remot...