Dr H.D. Kanga Memorial Library is probably not the one Indian sports activities library. However, there may be little doubt that it boasts of the biggest assortment of sports activities books in India, even perhaps Asia.

But the legacy of the Kanga Library stretches past that. Even immediately, when one can order books – even from abroad – on the faucet of a button and skim on handheld gadgets, some copies stay elusive. They may need gone out of print; the second-hand copies won’t ship to India; or they could simply be too costly.

Libraries used to deal with this at one level, as they nonetheless do for readers and researchers. But the Kanga Library did one thing extra. In his column in Mid-Day, sports activities author Clayton Murzello famous that “on non-match days, the only way a common man could get access to the Wankhede Stadium’s cricketing premises was through a visit to the Kanga Library. It welcomed everybody.”

The Wankhede Stadium was, in fact, not the primary dwelling the Kanga Library had. Dr H.D. Kanga, the primary nice Parsee cricketer of the twentieth century, handed away on December 29, 1945. “Exactly a year after” that day, “friends and well-wishers” initiated a fund.

Various sports activities golf equipment and patrons – together with Test cricketers Okay.S. Duleepsinhji, Vijay Merchant, and Pheroze Palia and BCCI president Anthony de Mello – contributed in the direction of the eventual sum of Rs 9,619.

Merchant, nonetheless an energetic Test cricketer, was a part of the committee that sanctioned Rs 6,500 to buy books and periodicals to start out a library named after Dr Kanga. This was in May 1950, two years after the Kanga Cricket League – it is not going to be an exaggeration to name it Merchant’s brainchild – had been underway.

The library was inaugurated on December 13 that yr, in an area that was once a dormitory on the north-west nook of the Brabourne Stadium. It started with 700 books, and the gathering grew quickly over time, as did the rely of eighty-two “ordinary” members within the inaugural yr.

The preliminary charges – a Rs 10 deposit, Rs 5 for entrance, Rs 2 for quarterly subscription – didn’t change till June 1972. The library remained accessible to all.

Merchant, in fact, was a part of the board of administration, as was venerable cricket statistician Anandji Dossa. Merchant donated his whole assortment to the library, and obtained the most effective books from all over the world.

Secretary and treasurer H.N. Contractor emerged because the driving drive of the library in its early years. “Every morning Contractor would be at the library as if a matter of ritual, doing the job of a clerk cum librarian cum accountant,” famous Theo Braganza, proprietor of Marine Sports, the sports-only bookshop in Dadar and a key determine of the library.

By 1960, the library had 3,422 books and 334 members. One of them was Dicky Rutnagur, then editor of Indian Cricket Field Annual. In the Nineteen Sixties, cricket statistician Sudhir Vaidya obtained Contractor’s permission to make use of the library after hours: he would return the keys to Rosario Rodrigues, the librarian.

In March 1975, the library was relocated to the bottom ground of the Garware Club House of the Wankhede Stadium, the brand new dwelling of Bombay Cricket. In 1995, a wing was arrange within the suburb of Mulund.

The decline

Despite the apparent developments, the officers observed a “fall in readership” within the Nineties. Interest dwindled, significantly for books outdoors cricket, chess, bridge, and soccer.

There have been different issues too. The library personnel had been present process fixed change, because of which, to cite Braganza, “the staff employed had no library background nor knowledge of managing a library and worst of all were just not fond of books or reading.” It was round this time that a number of books have been destroyed, stolen, or not returned by members.

The library nonetheless boasts an unimaginable catalogue, together with a full set of Wisden Almanacks from 1864; the Indian Cricket Almanacks from 1946/47; “all the annuals” from most main cricket-playing nations; most Olympic experiences; the entire units of most magazines throughout sports activities; and far more – in a number of languages.

Yet, there may be far more to a profitable library than buying an unimaginable assortment of books from all over the world. In April 2013, Mid-Day ran a report by Murzello on the abysmal situation of the Wisden Almanacks right here.

“The cupboard for the Wisdens was an embedded cupboard, inside the wall – and that wall was exposed to rain,” Murzello, a life member of the library because the mid-Eighties, informed me.

This didn’t go down effectively with the members, whose preliminary response revolved round the truth that a reporter had clicked images contained in the library. “I heard they wanted to discontinue my membership,” Murzello added.

Yet, when the library sought the assistance of pest management companies, in addition they reached out to Murzello for recommendation on preservation. The almanacks have been duly relocated to a metal cabinet, however the different books weren’t as lucky.

Braganza voiced his sentiments, of being “almost in tears to see the state of these precious books, most of with are irreplaceable, and to turn into a junk of books and paper.”

The renovation of the Wankhede Stadium had led to the books being shunted to a nook of a press convention room. “I am told some books are in cupboards, some books are in kitbags,” lamented Murzello. “Now they are waiting to get space to resume the library, which I hope they will.”

In the 2010s, there was an initiative in the direction of digitization, however there was no related replace. The books exist – no matter situation – however there isn’t any library to go to.

“The library has not been set up,” concluded Murzello. “They have a responsibility towards the members, but no one is talking about it.”

Right now, all we will do is hope for Asia’s greatest sports activities library to return to its pomp.