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Through the pages of history

Romain Rolland library is named after a French writer who was a great admirer of the Mahatma

The Romain Rolland library is an island of peace though located in a busy area housing Government buildings including the State Assembly, the Government General Hospital and the Lt. Governor's official residence, the Raj Nivas. With its huge collection of books and an air-conditioned reading room, the library is a place where many old timers prefer to read in and relax, especially during summer.

Romain Rolland, the great French writer, after whom the library is named, was a great admirer of Mahatma Gandhi. In 1946, when I was all but 18-years-old and a student of the College Colonial, Mahatma Gandhi came to Villupuram on his way to South Tamil Nadu. A group of friends and I absented ourselves from tuition classes to have his darshan at the railway station.

The next day, our tuition master, Rayar, asked me where I had been and I told him that I had fallen sick. But he saw through my ploy and asked me to tell the truth. Then I told him about my visit to Villupuram. He told me that being a follower of the Mahatma who believed in "truth being god" I should have told the truth. He also said that had I informed him earlier, he too would have accompanied me on my pilgrimage. On that particular day, thousands of people had travelled from Pondicherry just to have a darshan of the Mahatma. My master was a Franco Indian and I was surprised as to how he knew about Gandhiji. When I asked him, he said it was Romain Rolland. "I have read several articles and books that he has written and I too respect the Mahatma. Romain Rolland was a peace monger and sought to find solutions to problems without wars. He has met many world leaders and written letters to them," replied my master.

Even today, the elderly and those who had lived during the French rule refer to the library by its old name the Bibliotheque Publique. The public library in Pondicherry was started during the period of Governor Eugene Desbassyns de Richemont on May 16, 1827 with a small collection of books. In order to commemorate the birth centenary of Romain Rolland, the library was named after him in 1966.

Before the present building came up, the library was housed in a building situated behind the present IGP's office and that street was then known as Capucins Street. It had a tall entrance archway and big wooden almirahs to store the books. Anybody who could read and write could walk into the library and anyone who wanted to borrow books could get memberships. Though in the beginning only Europeans were allowed to use the library, later in 1837, the restriction was removed. That library mostly had books in French and Tamil.

I remember how my master asked me to read a heavy book on ants to make me take interest in biology.

MANNARMANNAN

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