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 Destiny or fate, or by whatever name you call it, is the power believed to control all events in a way that cannot be resisted. This can bring about dramatic and unexpected changes in a person's life and thus result in a total transformation. This is what happened in Mrs. Padma Anantha Padmanabhan's life. Padma, who has been
running a library for the past 13 years in Egmore, says happily, " My hobby has become my career. I was working in a nationalised bank but was compelled to leave my job when my first daughter was born."
She always had a great flair for reading. She recalls, "Any printed matter will attract my attention and I will put it down only after reading it." When she was living in Sait Colony in Egmore, the library, which she used to frequent regularly, was closed down all of a sudden. That was when she really started missing her books, as she was a voracious reader. So she started thinking of opening a library on her own. However, she had the least idea of how to go about it. Incidentally, she bumped into one of her old friends and was advised to approach a bank for a small-scale industries loan for a woman entrepreneur. When she approached a bank with a proper project report her application was rejected on the grounds that "loans are not sanctioned for starting libraries".
The loan was ultimately granted on condition that she would contribute one-third of the entire amount required for the project which was almost half a lakh rupees (and that too about 13 years back). Then, with great difficulty, she managed to put in her part of the seed capital, which was mainly used for paying rental advance and for buying some initial books. After this only, the loan was sanctioned. When it came to the naming of the library several names were proposed. But her nephew suggested the name Beaver Lending Library. Beaver happens to be a small fur-coated animal with strong teeth that lives both on land and water and gnaws down trees to build dams. Generally construction companies opt for this name. This name was suggested because she took great efforts in collecting books and materials from every nook and corner and built up the library even as a beaver builds a dam with the materials it collects. And her Beaver Lending Library was inaugurated on the 4th of September 1987 in the small room of the Embassy Tower on Montieth Road.
The specialty of this library is the completeness that we find in book
collection over here. Over the years she has specialized in collecting the complete sets of authors' works making it a one-stop shop (library!) with reference to those authors and thus making it unique. Be it any author, Padma takes special effort and goes to any corner of the city to make the collection of that particular author a complete one. Padma believes in personalised service. She knows most of her members by their names or membership numbers. Not only this, she is also familiar with her members' tastes. She knows what a particular member will read and easily caters to their needs by suggesting to them some books. She proudly says that there are certain members who do not even personally come to her library to take books. Instead, Padma herslf selects the books and sends them across through the messengers sent by her clients. This makes two aspects clear, one is that she is very familiar with the tastes of her members and the second is that she has a complete idea of what books that particular person has already read.
Such personal attention and care have attracted members belonging to various walks of life to this library. This list includes housewives, school students, college goers, professional college students and even corporate sector employees. The first few who got enrolled in the early days of the library still continue their membership of her library. Thus, in this case, " Familiarity has not bred contempt but confidence." This familiarity, which Padma has built up with her hard work and goodwill over 13 years, has made the library grow in all possible ways. A library, which was started in a humble way with just 2000 books, has grown like a banyan tree with more than 20,000 books.
Sujatha Pradeep
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