A Different Sort of Love

Since Valentine’s Day just passed - I figured, it was only fair that I wrote about love today. Groundbreaking! (10 points if you got that reference). But seriously, there’s one part of this magical universal emotion that I want to talk about. The love that brings people together and forms communities. Think about it. The love for sports (I see you CSK and Man-Utd fans), for music, for food (dessert ftw) and one of my favourites - Books.

When the announcement came that Westland Books would be shutting down, I felt bad. As a few days passed, I realised I was heartbroken. You know, the kind when you break up with a partner, act cool when it’s happening and then end up crying & listening to Adele or Arijit Singh (or both).

But it’s true. The news really hit me.

As a reader, I felt terrible about not getting the chance to discover & read some wonderful literature. As a writer, I felt devastated. That’s one chance less to send in a manuscript and ever have it read. That’s one space less to work with some incredible creative minds. That’s one reason less to be involved in an unpredictable place like publishing.

It also hurt because I realised what the entire team might be going through. Authors saying goodbye to books they’ve devoted years to writing. Agents who’ve helped these Authors get these book deals - seeing if they can get future reprints. Editors, Designers, Translators, Presses, PR, Sales and countless people who’ve helped bring these books & writers out into the world - now possibly out of jobs.

As I wallowed and wondered about what was happening, I got a message. It was Sowmya who was part of a writer’s group I was also in. She said she was looking for people to collaborate with for reaching out to local libraries. She wanted to request them to stock these books, so more people could access them. Not to mention, giving them some form of an afterlife.

Naturally, I responded because I wanted to help in whatever small way I could. Next thing - we were talking about also reaching out to schools, colleges & other public reading spaces. What followed was us spreading the news to as many people as we could and the response was overwhelming!

This process started on Feb 6th. Today, we’ve managed to reach out to spaces in Chennai, Coimbatore, Bangalore, Goa, Cochin, Delhi, Lucknow, Nasik & Bombay - and we’re hoping to keep reaching more cities. We’ve gotten support from communities like Kommune, Teach For India, The Alipore Post, Himalayan Writing Retreat, Humans of Kerala & Tree Learning, as well as Authors like Sharanya Mannivanan, Arunava Sinha, Suchitra Vijayan, Christophe Jaffrelot & Savie Karnel. Not to forget bookstores and other spaces who also reached out to help.

But the biggest shoutout goes to the community of volunteers that have built up over this period of time. People who love reading, writing, art, creativity and just good old stories. A community I am proud to be a part of, contributing to something all of us deeply love and care about.

I don’t know how you feel reading about this but I feel pretty darn good about how my Valentine’s month / week / day has been. Spending it with people who came together to help save some stories. And that, is a beautiful love story if you ask me.

Westland stops taking direct orders for books after Feb 15th. And these books start going out of print by the end of this month. By the end of March, the entire list will cease to be printed.

So, you can still join us and be part of this love story if you want. All you have to do is reach out to your local libraries, schools, colleges or other reading spaces and request them to keep Westland titles. You can even help out by organsing fundraisers, book collection drives and / or donating these books.

After all, even a little goes a long way :)