The city of Hyderabad conjures up images of not just ‘biryani’ and ‘pearls’ but also of some of the most beautiful heritage structures in the world. In an age of commercialization where cities are being converted into concrete jungles, the thought of bringing to life and focus a heritage structure is something commendable and that is what the Oakridgers intend to prove in Adopting a Monument as part of their CAS initiative and also in accordance with CBSE’s guidelines on an 'Educational Campaign to preserve and protect heritage monuments in the country.
The State Central Library at Afzalganj is one such heritage structure dating back to 1891. Situated on the banks of the Musi river this heritage structure is one of the oldest libraries in Hyderabad and houses books and some rare manuscripts.
Our objective in taking up this project is to sensitize students and the public in general to develop a healthy value system towards their heritage and to bring this heritage structure into focus not only for schools across Hyderabad but also the thousands of book lovers in the city.
We propose to involve students to investigate its local history, understand the challenges in its conservation and campaign for its preservation.
The students of Grade X visited the State Central Library today and as part of the preservation campaign helped in arrangement and cataloguing books in the Hindi section of the library.
This is what Nikhil, Sankeerth and Manoj of X have to say…
An entrance designed like the spilling pages of an open book welcomed us into the ‘State Central Library’ in Afzalgunj for our first CAS activity of this year along with class teacher Mrs. Prathima and CAS Coordinator Mr. David. A grand palace made by his highness, the 7thNizam of India, now stood in front of us, but not as a palace, rather a quaint old library. We were surprised upon being seated at the main reading hall, where we only saw about 10 closets of books. Truth is, 4.5 lakh books enveloped in dust lay in the very personal library of the Nizam, now belonging to the State Government of Andhra Pradesh.
Our job was to clean and rearrange the old Hindi books at the dark lower floors of the library. Seems easy doesn’t it? Wrong, it wasn’t. It was a tough task, but all we needed was coordination and diligence. We started off by taking places amongst the smoky grey shelves, making them shine, along with the yellowing 100 year old-books. It became a room of chaos and dust as we lifted over 50,000 books from the top floor down to the lower floors. Face masks and gloves were all we had, apart from a feeling to make a change. As sweat dropped, we kept working with a will to work, until we reorganized ourselves, 25 of us students, in a chain, all the way from the book pile on the top floor till the empty shelves on the bottom floor. Passing piles of books, hand to hand, and yelling orders and encouragement all around, we finally got the job done. Dirty but with a feeling of accomplishment, and a little fatigue, we got a tour of the different sections of the peaceful library. But what really made our jaws drop during the tour was the fact that every single one of the books was scanned and saved carefully in the digital library; open to anyone who wished to find rare books seemingly lost in another era.
At last we boarded the bus with mixed thoughts, except two common ones- Teamwork and triumph.
Some more thoughts by the students…..
Amandha: “It feels great to do our bit for the society. I wish we could’ve stayed longer.”
Swapnika: “A fun experience with friends and we were proud to finish the job, I’d love to help out again.”
Shansa: “We don’t realize how amazing it feels to do something together as one class until we actually do it. I’m waiting to come back.”
Girish: “All sweat and dust were worth the fun and educational activity.”
Shrey: “We really liked the visit and I hope these trips motivate others to foster the beauty of old monuments with great amusement.”
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