Srinagar: The Aragam village of north Kashmir’s Bandipora district is set to undergo a major revamp to become the country’s largest book village.
As per a report by Times of India, Sarhad, a Pune-based non-government organisation, will work on a collaboration with the Jammu and Kashmir administration.
The NGO has submitted a proposal that has been discussed with the district administration to create a book village in Aragam village in collaboration with the J-K government, reported the newspaper.
An NGO official said that the village is located in the scenic region, where the beauty of nature can bring solace to the visitors’ minds and also help them become more creative and probe the fundamental questions of life.
The official added that the village can inspire to probe into Kashmiri literature and rich history of Kashmir, besides witnessing an astounding culture.
Elaborating more on this, the NGO official told TOI that the idea of the book village is not all new, and that this concept will turn this place into a unique destination where visitors can learn about ancient and modern literature, history of Kashmir, and also get introduced to its folk culture intimately.
The NGO further revealed that the visitors will find books almost everywhere and places to read at leisure.
After the set up, the village will have ancient manuscripts, paintings and artefacts from Kashmir on exhibition, while new and old books will be made available to read and contemplate. It will be a village where folk culture will also be showcased.
The library complex will have a main building that will house a huge library for regular use of litterateurs and community and will have books in six languages initially, including Urdu, English, Kashmiri, Hindi, Marathi and Bengali.
