24 April,2011 10:30 AM IST | | Lhendup G Bhutia
In a little-known locality of Navi Mumbai, a life insurance agent has been studying and collecting French books for the last five years. With over 500 titles in his collection, he has now converted his home into a French library. No membership fee charged; all you need is a bit of love for the language
It won't be incorrect to view Sanpada and Vashi in Navi Mumbai as cousins since their fortunes have taken different turns. While Vashi has developed at breakneck speed, with high-end malls, fancy cars, and towering residential complexes, Sanpada is still a sleepy old area, dotted with unremarkable buildings housing unremarkable people.
Jadhav's books range from classics like Les Miserables and Les Trois
Mousquetaires (Alexander Dumas' The Three Musketeers) to comic books
u00a0like Asterix and Obelix. Pics/Sameer Markande
In one such building lives a life insurance agent, who doubles up as a real estate broker when there's some extra cash to make. In fact, there doesn't seem anything remarkable about 35 year-old Prashant Jadhav. His home is a small one-bedroom apartment, which he shares with his wife, four year-old daughter and parents. Because the living room also works as a bedroom for the entire family, it is mostly bare, except for a photograph of Dr BR Ambedkar, a steel chair, sofa, cupboard and a bookcase.
Strangely, the bookcase occupies nearly one-fourth of the room. Not only is it unusual for its size, it's jampacked with books; all of them in French. For Jadhav, this part of the room is Biblioth que, a home-run French library that's free to use between 6 pm and 8 pm every evening.
"I started learning French five years ago because I thought the language sounded beautiful. I'd pick up books from stores along Fort, and at secondhand shops, because I didn't have the money. After a few years, I realised I had amassed over 500 books."
At 30, Jadhav took his first class at Alliance Francaise, and is now a month away from taking his A-3 level French tests. In fact, in the last five years, his passion for the language has grown more permanent than even his occupation. He has been at various times a clerk at a courier firm, a SIM card vendor, and now, an LIC agent.
But he never stopped collecting. And along the way, he has received help. Learning of his library last year, both, the French consulate in Mumbai and the Alliance Francaise de Bombay donated books. Titles on the French language, classics like Les Miserables and Les Trois Mousquetaires (Alexander Dumas' The Three Musketeers), and comic books like Asterix and Obelix are part of his collection.
Jadhav is visited by at least five children every evening in his small room.u00a0 So why does he do it? "Well, I have so many books. And if even one person develops a passion for reading and the language, like I have, it can help them forget their otherwise dreary life."
At: French Bibliotheque, B-24 /1-6, Adarsh Society, Sector 8, Sanpada, Navi Mumbai
Call: 9867369397
Email: bibliofr.navimumbai@gmail.com
