THERE is a rush of people getting credit topped up for their mobile phones. Waiting for my turn, I peep into the deep shop and spot cabinets filled with books lining the walls. Both the cabinets and the books are ageing, so I ask the young man behind the counter if this is a shop selling second-hand books. “No,” he says, “this is a library. An old-fashioned anna library of Urdu books. It’s the only such establishment left in Lahore and probably one of the few in Pakistan.”

Subsequent conversation with this young man’s father, 71-year-old Muhammad Hussain, makes it clear that it really is one of the anna libraries of which people of yesteryear talk so fondly.

But the list of customers is shrinking now. Today, there are just 150 customers when only two years ago, there were 700. The bookworms left include a retired surgeon of renown, the same age as Hussain, who visits the anna library often to satiate the reading passion he developed in his childhood. “I have travelled a lot and lived abroad,” says Dr Rehan, chuckling like a child. “I have bought countless books, 80 per cent of them donated to libraries. But the anna library is my childhood love.”

“I am just returning home with a book from the library,” says Habibur Rehman, a Sui gas company officer. He was a resident of Saddar when he became a member nearly 30 years ago. Now, he lives in Walton and happily traverses the 10-kilometre distance. He explains how reading fashioned his life. “It taught me manners, history and vocabulary. I can afford to buy books, but I love borrowing from the library. It’s romanticism,” he says. “I can’t sleep without reading.”

Hussain tells me the library is the same age as Pakistan and was originally established in the adjacent shop by the late Soori. His friend, the late Naseem, used to run the library from 4pm to 9pm. The place then was not crowded and “it was the last to close”.

He says he developed the reading habit in his childhood and came upon the library in 1955 on a visit to his aunt who lived in Saddar. “I was automatically attracted to it and it absorbed me forever,” he recalls fondly. Hussain explains he would come here to read, which led to a lasting friendship with Naseem. As a result, he ended up running the facility when Naseem was away. His addiction to books and dexterity in handling the business made him the owner of the library in 1966.

Back then, he says, the clientele was vast, including men and women of all ages from mainly the adjacent Cantonment. It expanded after the Officers Colony was established in Saddar. A majority of the members from this colony were women looking for romantic and historical novels and collections of short stories.

Hussain paid one anna (four paisas) as the one-day charge for his first book, with a Rs5 security deposit. Today, it is Rs10 and Rs500, respectively.

“We used to have a register containing the addresses of our members,” Hussain says. “Now, there are mobile phone numbers on which we contact them to remind them of an overdue book. This is a place which satiates book addicts’ passion. Their addiction is in fact keeping my passion for this library alive. I have earned a lot here, but now it’s not the earning that matters. It’s the passion that allows this last anna library to exist.”

Hussain says he believes that first television and then the internet and mobile phones destroyed book publishing and reading trends in Pakistan. Television started screening plays based on popular novels, allowing people to watch what they would earlier read. “Earlier, publishers would pursue popular writers for another piece and hunt for new talent because of the demand for books,” he says. “Now there is no demand and, therefore, no writer and no publisher.”

The library has 8,000 books, all read by Hussain, who continues to add to the list. He bought stocks from three such establishments in the locality when they were being closed down because of lack of business.

The books include Maulana Muhammad Hussain Azad’s Aab-i-Hayat, published by Victoria Press in 1880. There is Rashid Akhtar Nadvi’s Khilafat-i-Rashidah aur Jamhuri Qadrain, published in 1966, and Sadiq Hussain Siddiqui’s Mehbooba-i-Baghdad, published in Karachi in 1962. Their prices are mentioned Rs7.50 and Rs7, respectively. There are writings by the then popular Ibne Safi and Akram Allahabadi whose novel Dr Slazar, Hussian says, presented the theory of submarines for the first time. Other books include Tirit Ram Ferozepuri’s romantic novels, short stories by Munshi Prem Chand, and works of Saadat Hasan Manto and Ismat Chughtai. Also available is poetry by Ghalib, Mir, Akbar Allahabadi and Iqbal.

“Reading transfers wisdom and knowledge of the world,” Hussain says. “Our new generation is getting knowledge from the internet which may not be age-specific, relevant or domestic. That is why it is losing its roots. Keeping them informed of who they are is necessary at a time when even textbooks are erasing our links with our ancestors.”

Published in Dawn, August 28th, 2016