SPOTLIGHT | Books, Bicycles and a Boy: An eco-conscious lending library in Goa
Written by Hina Siddiqui, Queer Neurodivergent Storyteller exploring Transmedia, Gaming, working with Education, Experience-creation and Community-building with input from Elijah De Souza, co-founder of The Booktique Goa
In August I took a trip to Goa. The state has become the destination of choice for a lot of creative talents who are looking for sustainable ways to pursue their dreams while living that susegad life. I met a few of them during my short trip - a film-editor-turned-gamemaker, someone developing incubators for artists in a 100-year-old villa, an old French couple singing La Vie En Rose at open mics, someone running a zero waste grocery store and even someone who came for a week and is still in Goa more than a year later.
And in that environment, it was not surprising to meet someone whose day job was delivering books all over the countryside. On a bicycle.
Elijah with his beloved dog Pablo and of course, books packed in old newspapers, ready for deliveryElijah De Souza is a 24-year-old agricultural studies graduate who has grown up with books. “I don't remember a time from my young days when I did not have reading material around me. I read the weekly children’s newspaper we used to get in school back then and I had this giant hardbound book of facts.” Cousins from the UK brought him copies of the British Boy’s Annual, a quaint piece of British literary history, published around WWI. And he made the best he could of book fairs during open days and special events at school. Elijah first signed up as a library member as a teenager at the Ceco Circulating Library, in Mapusa, which was one of the two main libraries in the area, dating back to the 70s. “500 bucks for a lifetime membership was a great deal! It was old and dingy but had the best yesteryear books.”
It was at this library that he picked up his first novel, Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist. A book he still considers as one of the best he has ever read.
Ceco, like so many other libraries across the country, has since shut down. But readers gonna read and soon they’d have one of the most unique ways to access their love for books.
Fast-forward a few years and Elijah started to dream about building a reading lounge in Goa to continue his childhood romance with books. It all came together in 2018 on a single 5-hour journey back from agriculture college. With the help of his friend Emmanuel Souza, Elijah embarked on a collection drive, gathering books from his own stock as well as from friends and family. They got about 600 novels together and catalogued them on AllMyBooks, a home library software that’s been around since 2003. And thus the Booktique Goa was born!
This image is from a time when the Mollem forest in Goa was under threat of being destroyed by the government for 3 megaprojects. Elijah would hand paint these messages and a dead tree on all book deliveries to help patrons understand how they could do their bit to save the forest.There were teething issues of course.
Sharing booklists with patrons, for instance. For a couple of years, they simply shared a pdf list with patrons and manually processed all requests. Software upgrades followed till funds were finally raised to build their very own website in September of this year: thebooktiquegoa.com
Today, the Booktique Goa is a lending library that serves a dedicated community of readers in Goa. They have recently opened up deliveries across India. Subscriptions start for as low as Rs 297/- a month and the library now boasts a collection of over 3000 books, a number that is all set to grow in the next few months, since Booktique makes a point to get new books on their shelves as much as they can. You have writing from Indian authors - Aravind Adiga, Amish, Devapriya Roy, Rohinton Mistry, Sangeeta Bandyopadhyay and many more. Literary staples like Jeffrey Archer, Agatha Christie, Cecelia Ahern and Ruskin Bond. The haunting beauty of books by Isabella Allende, Margaret Atwood and A. S. Byatt. Quaint essays on the natural and cultural landscape of Goa as well as books about spiders and butterflies. History, spirituality, fiction, fantasy, poetry, plays, classic and contemporary- there’s a book for every taste here. They also have a small collection of books for young readers that they plan to expand in the coming months. And all of this can be easily accessed online, saving members the trouble of battling traffic and rushing to libraries after work to get a hold of their weekly reading fix at a fraction of the cost of buying the books outright.
And just this much would be extraordinary enough.
Reading books as a practice has been dying for a while (though it never does seem to ever truly kick the bucket). And for a young person today, to build a space for readers of all kinds is a remarkable commitment of time and effort. But Elijah takes it just that one step further. With endurance cycling. This young entrepreneur and agriculturist has a personal record of cycling 600 km, a journey he finished in 39 hours and 45 minutes. Next year he plans to participate in the Paris – Brest - Paris (PBP) ride in France (1200 km to be completed in 90 hours). And bringing his passion for cycling and books together, he creates a service that is hard to beat, with him personally hand-delivering books on his cycle every day. “Bringing together my passion for reading and cycling has helped me mould the library to what it is today. I cycle all the way from Anjuna to Dona Paula on some days and the total distance of the ride is 60 km.”
Booktique community member Francila Vaz teaching children how to stitch cloth bags and scrunchiesAnd if you ask him why he does this, Elijah’s answer is simple, “Being able to bring a smile to a patrons face after they have received the books is all the motivation I need to carry on with the library. I don’t go back home with a big wallet, I go back home being content that I was able to help someone to continue their reading passion.”
Library patron Sharbelle Fernandez confirms:
I have been a member of Booktique for more than a year. I know that when I place an order for my books, Elijah will be there to deliver them home on time. His warm smile, his eco-friendly cycle delivery in brown paper packaging, neatly tied and cutely sealed with wax - That's a nice way to receive your books. What more can one ask for?
Liza Pinheiro and Estella Pires from ELijah’s agriculture college selling fresh vegetables, seeds and organic fertilizersElijah is currently in the process of establishing his own farm in Anjuna. A typical day starts off with delivering books really early in the morning so that he can come home to irrigate plants, feed hens, dig furrows and build Hugelkultur beds. Then it’s back to checking the website for new orders and packing them in paper for delivery the next day. And like the libraries of yore, the Booktique Goa is truly embedded within the community. They regularly include local artists and makers from the neighbourhood, whether it is to sell brownies or crochet earrings. Elijah’s classmates from agriculture college have come in to conduct workshops on vermicomposting, oyster mushroom cultivation and management of plant pests and diseases to build community knowledge around sustainable living.