A friend of mine, Sughosh Majmundar, like many others, has the disease of hoarding books, and in his closets, cupboards, storage rooms, on the stairs, on the refrigerator, on the sofa, there are unopened parcels of books lying on the floor. It doesn't matter what language, what subject, what price, just a book! Gaganwala's Manchala Sirfira Brain Med Bhillu Mr. Badal says that in ten years books will be as outdated as copperplates, the language itself will be different, faster, concise and skin-friendly than it is today, if you want to say 'you like us a lot', you just have to hand in your hand. By putting it on the skin, you will feel that, you know, we like you very much. And perhaps today's phone-obsessed youth may not know that once upon a time there was not Google for knowledge but books and librarians were there to preserve them. A journalist named Sara Aine Lloyd informs us via email about six hidden librarians. Marie Antoinette's Library–– In the palace of Versailles (pronounced 'Veysai'), the royal residence of the French kings Louis XVI and his queen Marie Antoinette, a private library was built exclusively for Queen Marie Antoinette in a back room reserved for her courtiers. Marie Antoinette was a rather irresponsible queen, but she was a lover of books and her library included some of the books banned by her husband, King Louis XVI. His collection exceeded 10,000 books. Vatican Apostolic Archives –– A 'secret library' known as the 'Bunker' is located in Vatican City and contains 1,200 years of documents, such as the correspondence of Henry VIII's request to divorce Catherine of Aragon in 1530 and the written transcript of the 1633 trial for Galileo's 'crime'. Its official Latin name is 'archivium secretum', which translates to 'secret history'. The Vatican says that private is more true than secret. A.D. In 2019, Pope Francis renamed the library the 'Vatican Apostolic Archives' so as not to sound discriminatory. La Library, Catacombs – In 18th-century Paris, France, cemeteries became so overcrowded that their burials were contaminating the groundwater. So the thousand-year-old remains were moved to an underground mine, and arranged in small alleys. The haunted labyrinth called the Paris Catacombs has about 186 miles of tunnels, but only a small part of it is open to the public, including La Librerie, a small room where researchers take books and leave them where others find work. Metropolitan Irwin Szabo Library, Budapest ––When you first walk into this Irwin Szabo Library in Budapest, Hungary, you suddenly find yourself in a veritable palace. Built in the 1880s, the building was called Vankheim Palace, the residence of Hungary's richest landowners, Count Frigis and Countess Krysztina Vankheim. In 1926 it was taken over by City Improvement, and in 1931 it became a library. Both the world wars and later the Soviet oppressors severely damaged its reputation. It was restored in 1998. It features the Count's former smoking room, the Grand Ballroom and Silver Salon, decorated in the elegant 'Neo-Baroque' style with ornate gold chandeliers, and a winding spiral staircase. Syria's Secret Library –– The rebel-held city of Darya, Syria, has been under constant shelling for its opposition to the government of dictator Bashar al-Assad. In 2013, when its population had dwindled from 80,000 to just 8,000, 40 volunteers opened an underground library in the basement of a house, picking up books from the rubble. The city lacked food, electricity, and water, but citizens could read books in the library, and volunteers taught English, math, and history. The announcement of that library and those classes was done in the face of fear of the Syrian army. Unfortunately, after the city was sacked, that library was also destroyed. Book Grottoes of Dunhuang––Mogao Grottoes, hand-dug in the Chinese city of Dunhuang, are about 500 mountain caves. It contains 2,000 painted sculptures and 500,000 square feet of murals of stunning Buddhist art. A cave also houses a 1,300-year-old 100-foot-tall statue of Buddha. Built between the 4th and 14th centuries, these caves fell into disrepair by 1900. Then a Tibetan monk one day made an amazing discovery: a 10-foot-tall cave crammed with ancient documents! Closed for over a millennium, the museum housed both documents and rare religious texts. Chronologically only one-fifth of the collection remained. But the international Dunhuang Project is digitizing archivist documents around the world and putting them into a central database. Salute to the youth of Syria, Jai Jawan!
Image Credit: (Divya-Bhaskar): Images/graphics belong to (Divya-Bhaskar).
