A Village of Books amid strawberry fields

Shiv Kumar in Mumbai

For more than a century, the twin hill stations of Panchgani and Mahableshwar have been inviting weary Mumbaikars. The past decade, though, has seen the two towns rediscover themselves as the country’s strawberry hub as farmers took to cultivation of hybrid varieties of the fruit which found instant markets across the country. Last year, Bhilare, a village in Satara district, decided to do even better than just offering home stays: it became India’s first Village of Books. 

The inspiration comes from the village of ‘Hay on Wye’, a Welsh town in the United Kingdom known for its book stores and literature festivals. The Maharashtra government agreed to a suggestion by some of Bhilare’s villagers to turn it into a village of books or ‘Pustakache Gaav’.

After Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis inaugurated the Village of Books last year, various government offices such as the tourism and state language departments, have been pushing to improve its visibility in public. With the backing of education minister Vinod Tawde, the Marathi Bhasha (language) department of the government shortlisted 25 locations in the village which were converted into libraries. 

“At present three temples, two schools and several houses have been converted into libraries,” says Venkat Suryavanshi of the Marathi Rajya Bhasha department.

Many houses in the village were already offering homestays under a project undertaken by the Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation (MTDC) to help rural families benefit from tourism. The state language department equipped many of these houses with glass-fronted cupboards to store books which were provided under the government programme.

Each of the 25 locations in the village has at least 400 books, mainly in Marathi. Visitors are encouraged to walk in and lounge around and browse through books of their choice and leave them for the next reader. The “libraries” are also colourfully decorated with paintings depicting scenes from literature, poetry and biographies to make them stand out. The villagers have now taken to social media to showcase the uniqueness of their homes.

The summer season will see MTDC offering ‘Bhilare – the Village of Books’ as a major destination among tourists visiting Panchgani and Mahabaleshwar. Another ten locations in the village have been identified for upgrading into libraries where books from English, Hindi and Gujarati will be added. “Many tourists who visited last year have suggested that we keep books in other languages as well,” says Suryavanshi.

MTDC officials say, Bhilare’s newfound identity has resulted in more families turning their residences into homestays. The state tourism department estimates that as many as 40 lakh people visit the twin hill-stations every year. 

Prashant Bhilare, a young strawberry farmer and a gram panchayat member, has converted the ground floor hall of his two-storey house into a small library of Marathi books. Outside wall of his home has a beautiful painting of a fort built by Shivaji and inside there are chairs, tables, book shelves and of course strawberries to greet the readers. His home-cum-library-guest room is among the 25 houses which are the part of the Village of Books project.