This vibrant Government school library in Tamil Nadu makes reading soulful

Butterflies light up the Writer Ku Alagirisamy Centenary School Library in Arachalur, TN, Started by Cuckoo Movement For Children

It’s the butterflies that we first spot. They hover over the walls of the library as paintings, their colours lighting up the space. In the centre, is a clay sculpture of Tamil author Ku Alagirisami, made by Chennai artist Koilpitchai Prabakar. Outside, on a wall, reads Writer Ku Alagirisamy Centenary School Library. On adjacent walls, are huge sketches of Russian writers Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostovesky. The library, the latest addition to the Government Higher Secondary School in Arachalur, a town near Erode, is a departure from those at many Government-run institutions.

It was started by Tiruvannamalai-based Cuckoo Movement For Children, a community that works across Tamil Nadu taking the arts, stories, and Nature to children across strata, with focus on rural children. “This is the centenary year of Alagirisami, and we opened the library on September 23, the last day of the centenary,” says Sivaraj from Cuckoo.

Why this particular school? “This is where my Physics teacher OV Saravana Kumar taught us what education really is,” says Sivaraj, who is an alumina. Saravana Kumar, who retired as the headmaster, would arrive long before the children did in the morning, pick up the broom and clean the toilets first thing. “He believed children, especially girls, should have access to clean toilets, and was among the first teachers in the State to install sanitary napkin dispensers in a Government school toilet,” he adds.

‘Physics Sir’, as he is popularly known in the town, planted many trees in the campus during his time, and created a system that ensured all the plants and trees in the campus benefited from rain water. It was Saravana Kumar who inaugurated the library. It has over 4,000 titles in Tamil and English, ranging from books by Anton Chekov and B Jeyamohan, to Tulika’s and Pratham’s picture books. “We have assigned a separate section for books for teachers, and another for children in the teen years,” explains Sivaraj, adding that contribution also came from Yaan, an Erode-based charitable trust.

The library is set to digitise rare books that have gone out of print, that will be made available for free. The butterflies on the walls have been picked out by Nature enthusiast Yashok Sivasubramaniam. These include indigo flash, double-banded judy, golden angle, pale palm dart, Indian tawny rajah, and Indian skipper, species specific to the forests surrounding Erode, that comprises Hasanur, Kadambur, and Anthiyur forests.

“These are butterflies that children here are familiar with,” explains S Madhumanjari, an architect with Cuckoo, who shows us around the library. A crafts workshop is in progress when we visit, and teacher trainer K Samuel, who is skilled in folk arts and origami, is showing girls from classes VI, VII, and VIII how to fold seven types of caps with newspaper. Laughter fills the space as the girls try on their caps. The library is also set to host similar events, all of which will focus on encouraging children to pick up a book from its shelves and read.

Sivaraj hopes that the model is replicated in schools across Tamil Nadu. “For a child, a library should be a space where magic happens. This may be because of a story by Helen Keller or a sketch by Manohar Devadoss found in its many books,” he says. They chose to paint butterflies in the library because the insects are the result of a transformation, one that he hopes will also happen in the children who visit it.