A trail-blazer in salvaging rare books

By M. Malleswara Rao

HYDERABAD, MAY 12. It's a task not known to have been handled by anyone else in the country and perhaps in the whole world to date. And yet, Sundarayya Vignana Kendram here, the mammoth memorial library set up by the CPI-(M) after Putchalappali Sundarayya, is able to succeed in the trail-blazing effort at salvaging its large number books which were damaged during the Hyderabad floods on August 24 last, with stack-rooms coming under roof-deep rainwater.

In its battle to save the invaluable possessions which include hundreds of rare books, documents, chronicles, magazines and gazettes in Telugu, English and Urdu, donated by several intellectuals, scholars and authors like Arudra, Dasarathi and Abdus Samand Khan, a Hyderabad resident who sold his "rarest of rare" Urdu collections dating back to the Aurangzeb time for Rs 25 lakhs, the Kendram used state-of-art technology. The effort has been rewarding. Out of the 1.20 lakh books flooded, 12,000 have been reclaimed and rebound so far.

The library trust headed by Mr Lavu Bala Gangadhara Rao and comprising communist veterans like Mr Koratala Satyanarayana, Mr Y. Radhakrishna Murthy and Mr Parsa Satyanarayana is now trying to get "thermal vacuum freezer drier" from Cromwell Restoration Limited, the only company in the world to have such machine, using a portion of the Rs 1.38 crores offered by Chicago University. According to Mr C. Sambi Reddy, secretary, now they are negotiating with Air-India to airlift the drier, a white elephant under the circumstances though, from Canada. The 10- tonne machine occupies 200 sq ft space but requires 2,000 sq ft extra apart from A/c facility to operate. Arrangements are being made for this shortly-expected machine, with all these facilities. To complete the assigned task, the drier will have to stay here for 10 months and for each month, the rent to be paid is $ 3 lakhs.

Once the drier saves the books, the trust plans to relocate the library on a new site available adjacent to the Kendram by constructing a new building there. This has been necessitated by two factors. First, its continuance in the sub-cellar is always risky in view of the possible floods in future, and, second, the other floors of the Kendram have been found by engineers unfit to carry the library-level load. Books place a load of 1,000 kg per each square metre while a floor of the Kendram can take only up to 500 kg.

While the iron rakes in the sub-cellar which once contained the books, resemble skeletal remains, a beehive of activity is on at the basement today. About a dozen people work here round the clock setting right 30,000 books which were brought from a private "faster cold-storage plant" at Byramulguda on the Hyderabad-Nagarjunasagar road where they were shifted to and kept at plus 2 degrees (Celsius) temperature, a few days after the catastrophe on the advice of Chicago University. These titles were removed from the plant as, they developed fungus at that temperature. The books are cleaned, with ears being straightened, and rebound. The pages and printing have been found intact but it is said that their lifespan has come down.

These books could not save themselves from fungus as they were not able to get space at minus-20 degrees, as suggested by Chicago University and others, in the plant. The 10,000 sq ft space available at that temperature in the plant was used for accommodating 90,000 more valuable books. The only other such cold-storage plant available in Hyderabad, also owned by a private party, was otherwise engaged. This was in spite of the offer of a high rent of Rs 12-16 lakhs as has been done in the case of the Byramulguda plant for all these months.

Interestingly, the State Government agreed to assist the library in the salvage effort but an MRO, deputed by the Hyderabad (Urban) Collector, arrived at the scene only the other day -- after a gap of nearly nine months. And then, he went back promising to come back. The help did not come from any of the Communist countries, erstwhile or present. Mr Sambi Reddy, himself a Communist, says that the Communist countries are not in a position today to take up this type of missions and that book- salvage technology is not known to exist there. An amount of Rs 1.45 lakhs was sent to the library from National Archives but the trust cannot use it for salvage operation because, it was sent "for another purpose".

The Communist leaders have appealed to donors and book-lovers to come forward with contributions to restore the library to its old glory. Already, fund-rasing campaign is on in some countries, including the US where one Telugu association, TANA, promised a grant.

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Section  : Southern States
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