Mother-daughter duo’s unique drive to promote Gujarati literature

VADODARA: On the first Sunday of every month, book-lovers from the city make it a point to visit Kamatibaug and park themselves around a car. While some of them pick up books from the car, others are seen donating books. A mother-daughter duo from the city has started a unique drive to promote reading of Gujarati literature among the citizens. The duo distributes Gujarati books to people for free on the first Sunday of every month through their mobile library. “The number of people reading Gujarati books is declining rapidly. There are countless literary gems in Gujarati language. However, prose and poetry in Gujarati are known to very few today. Through this initiative, we intend to encourage reading of Gujarati literature among people,” said Shilpa Shelat (51), a social entrepreneur, who kick-started the free book drive in the city a year ago. According to Shelat, a lot of people own Gujarati books, but they don’t have time to read. The initiative is intended to collect books and distribute them among avid readers. Shilpa along with her daughter Khushali Shelat (19) initiated the drive in January after being persuaded by an Ahmedabad-based writer and industrialist Rajendra Patel. The drive named as ‘Pustak Parab’ is a part of Matrubhasha Abhiyaan, an Ahmedabad-based social start-up by Gujarati language enthusiasts.The Gujarati books that are distributed include literary works by Kanaiyalal Munshi, Suresh Dalal, Jayanti Patel, Kajal Oza Vaidya and Himanshi Shelat. Shilpa and Khushali have been distributing Gujarati novels, plays, short stories, biographies and anthology of poems for a year. Readers need to provide their name and contact to get books. The club has distributed around 1,400 free books this year.Shilpa along with her daughter, Khushali, park their car outside the Band Stand gate and display books that are kept in their car’s boot space. “Our house is full of books and we have not owned a television for over eight years now. Reading as an activity helps an individual in many ways, through this activity we want people to read and enjoy Gujarati literature,” said Khushali.Khushali added that along with Shilpa, her father Nishesh Shelat and brother Karna Shelat are avid readers and they too have chipped in for the initiative. Children’s books by popular Gujarati writers like Hariprasad Vyas, Kanti Desai, Giju Badheka and Mukund Shah are also up for the grab.