What happens when four avid readers come together? A book club is born.
The Kolkata Bookworms was founded earlier this year by Khushi Rungta, Ashwani Kumar Sinha, Shreemanti Chakrabarty and Deotima Sarkar, who met online and decided to take the community offline. The book club’s activities extend beyond discussing just books — from reading choices, bookish games, book read-alongs and even cleaning your bookshelves, the members discuss them all, creating a fun space for book lovers to connect.
The origin
Speaking about the community, co-founder Khushi told My Kolkata, ‘’We decided to start an offline base in Kolkata so that we could meet. Basically, a platform to have a hangout session just for the book lovers. Deotima [Sarkar] gave us the idea of creating a bookstagram community for the book readers and lovers of Kolkata and thus Kolkata Bookworms was founded four months ago. Officially, we are launching it today before the end of the year.’’
How to become a member?
Four months on and the community is already fast growing with 45-50 members. All you have to do to join is register via the form https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd6sICsvOMqHi-8b9NgJwfiZBbzoaZeyeUOMo30b_Ido4Uwtw/viewform?fbclid=PAAaZgAMZkFhO8dlvOO1PRtkitUWBu1sLnwJX1MxK10DpsmuwFWo3R2BBByd8 . Once a member, you will be initiated to the book club meet-ups and various activities.
‘’Currently we have done a Secret Santa Book Exchange and Read of the Month. We have the Apeejay Kolkata Literary Festival coming up. We want to collaborate with bookstores and we have also launched our student chapter at Haldia Institute of Technology,” said Khushi.
The members come from diverse backgrounds — from students to corporate professionals and bankers.
Trishita Das, 24, is a geophysicist by profession. “I have been a member of the club for the last two months. Readers finding readers is a very big deal nowadays. Everybody’s into videos or movies. I love thrillers and fantasy and read multiple books together. Some of my favourite authors include Fredrik Backman, Colleen Hoover and Sidney Sheldon.’’
(L-R) Khushi Rungta, Ashwani Kumar Sinha, Deotima Sarkar, Shreemanti Chakrabarty
The launch
Bookworms are generally believed to be introverts and find it difficult to engage in conversation. Thus, to break the ice, the launch involved fun games, quiz and poetry slams while keeping the book theme intact. The day ended with a blind book exchange.
Dhriti Bagaria, 17, who came to the meet-up said she had heard about the community from her sister. “I am a student of Class XII at Mahadevi Birla World Academy. After hearing about the community from my sister, I wanted to meet new people and also find out about more books. My studies don’t allow me much time for books at present but I enjoy reading. I like suspense, thrillers and murder mysteries. The last book I read was The Murder of Rodger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie. I am thinking about reading a short story by H.G. Wells next called In The Avu Observatory.’’
What about books?
Kolkata Bookworms gives members the freedom to read and discuss any books that they like unless it hosts a special book or theme-specific event. “Overall, English books get more prominence but we have promoted Bengali books on our page and during meet-ups we also talk about Hindi books. Amitav Ghosh, Ali Hazelwood, Colleen Hoover, Brahm Stoker are popular authors the members are reading,’’ said Rungta.
(L-R) Khushi Rungta, Shreemanti Chakrabarty, Deotima Sarkar, Ashwani Kumar Sinha
Pranshu Jaiswal, 21, a third-year Economics student from Seth Anandram Jaipuria College who came to the meet with a friend said, “I have come here because of a friend. I am not an avid reader. When I was in Class VI or VII, I used to read Harry Potter books. Post-Class X Boards, I lost the habit of reading and only recently have I gone back to reading. For me, if I watch a movie and find out that it's adapted from a novel, I go through the PDF. It’s more convenient. Currently I am reading The Guest List.’’