Mumbai’s Just Got a Unique ‘Garden Library’ & You Will Love The Experience!

Mumbai is all set to rekindle the love of reading amongst its citizens with the city’s first open garden library at the 4,500-sq ft garden on Dr E Borges Road in Parel.

This library garden aims to reclaim the forgotten love of paperbacks and separate readers from their phones, tablets, electronic readers, and wherever else they consume written content these days.

The Indian Express reports that this garden library, located next to the ITC Grand Hotel in Parel, can accommodate about 40-50 readers at a time.

Right from children’s literature to autobiographies, literature and science fiction, glass shelves have been set up to house over 1,000 books.

So whether you are out on a morning walk or an evening stroll, take some time out, pick a book and lose yourself in the written word.

If your next question is going to be the security of these books, worry not. While locks have been installed for the shelves, security guards have been deployed to monitor them.

A Shiv Sena member told the publication, “The reader will need to ask for the book from the guard. They cannot take the book home. The library would be open until 8 pm every day.”

As per a Mumbai Mirror report, the cost of building the city’s first such open-library was set at Rs 13 lakh.

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Speaking at the inauguration ceremony of the garden library, Aditya Thackeray, President of the youth wing of the Shiv Sena, said, “We have open gyms in our area, so why not an open book garden? We do get to read on Kindle these days, but there is a different joy in getting to turn pages and read the book.”

He reiterated how the dawn of smartphones and social media threatened the old school culture of reading books. Further, he recommended the installation of cell phone jammers around the library to discourage the use of phones inside the reading space.

So whether you are a book lover or not, don’t forget to visit this garden library the next time you stop in Parel.

(Edited by Shruti Singhal)

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