Chennai gets its first location-driven reading community at Elliot’s Beach, Besant Nagar

Chennai gets its first location-driven reading community at Eliot’s Beach, Besant Nagar

At 6:30 am on a Sunday, the sun rays are still soft in their warmth; the Karl Schmidt Memorial at Besant Nagar beach provides shade to a gathering of readers in various states of immersion in their books. Undisturbed by the raucous cricket and volleyball matches, they are enveloped in their own silent bubbles. Amidst the murmur of the waves and the morning beachgoers, the readers are an oasis of stillness.

This is the first meeting of Bessy Reads, a silent reading community organised by Sanjana Patnaik and Kruthika Kumar. Both of them, avid readers that they are, were inspired by Cubbon Reads in Bangalore and wanted to start a community promoting silent reading in Chennai, a city well-known for its love for literature. “It has been surprisingly difficult to find like-minded, fellow readers in Chennai,” Kruthika Kumar, one of the two organisers, says. “We at the Reads Community wanted to create a silent and safe space for readers,” she adds.

“I thought of going to Bangalore just to experience Cubbon Reads, but thankfully, Bessy Reads got recommended to me on Instagram before that,” says Sai Sruthi, one of the readers, sharing how she found out about this community. Bessy Reads saw around 16 readers for their very first meeting. Most of them had come across the Bessy Reads Instagram page when they were looking to get back into the habit of reading and for a community of readers to be a part of. “It’s been long since i have read something without losing concentration,” says Janani Madavan, another reader, with agreements from the other readers on how the setting at the beach helped them focus on reading.

When asked about why meet at a beach and not a park, Sanjana Patnaik, the co-organiser, says, “Chennai is known more for its beaches as compared to parks, so it only seemed appropriate to meet here.” Her co-organiser, Kruthika, adds, “We chose Besant Nagar Beach as it is in the residential area and safe to travel to in the morning.” This proved true when most of the readers travelled from Thiruvanmiyur, Thoraipakkam and Porur to attend.

As the sun rose higher into the sky, the glaring heat began to rouse the readers from their spots and in search of shade. At 9:00, the organisers gathered the readers for a group picture. The meeting ended on a high note after a hearty breakfast at the nearby Murugan Idly Shop.

Bessy Reads looks to provide a space for people looking to get into reading, again or for the first time, by dedicating a few hours of the week to reading. They conduct their meetings every Sunday from 6am to 9am at Besant Nagar Beach. They update interested readers via their Instagram stories on @bessyreads every week regarding the exact location of their next meeting.