Govt school teacher sets up library with his salary in Suryapet

This Govt school teacher spends 20% of his salary every month to buy books for the library he set up

Suryapet: A library at Suryapet, with above 50,000 books collected by a government school teacher who spent 20 percent of his salary every month on the same, has now become a popular destination for research scholars of universities, particularly to read on literature and history.

The teacher, 45-year-old Sheela Avilenu, currently working as a Telugu pandit with the Zilla Parishad High School in Devaraleni Kothapally of Nagaram mandal, made the first floor of his house in Srinivas Colony of Suryapet the library, collecting more than 50,000 books including 40,000 Telugu books while the rest were English and Hindi books. In addition to this, over a 100 books in Kannada, Marathi and Urdu languages were also available.

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A few rare books, which are not anymore available in the market, were also available in his library. The first Telugu detective novel ‘Nene’, written by Devaraju Venkata Krishna Rao and published in 1924 and another book, ‘Deshodharaka Grandhamala’, a compilation of stories of different writers and brought by Vattikota Alwal Swamy in 1955, are part of the exquisite collection. A rare book on Yakshaganam ‘Gandla Kandam’ published in 1932 is also part of the library.

Avilenu collected dictionaries of 100 publications in English, Telugu and Hindi, while the rest of the collection comprised literature and poetry in Telugu, Hindi and English, detective novels, children’s literature, books on folk arts and cine literature.

Among over 50,000 books, nearly 10,000 books related to literature of Telangana writers and poets and 2,000 books, written by writers from erstwhile Nalgonda district, are popular among visitors to the library.

Speaking to Telangana Today, Avilenu said his hobby started in 1993 when he was an intermediate student. After getting the Telugu pandit job in 1999, he was spending 20 percent of his salary to buy the books.

He choose three ways to collect books – from shops selling old books, new books from bookstores and also from donors. On holidays, he would visit shops selling old books in Suryapet and search for books in huge piles of paper and books in them.

Several of the rare books in the collection came from such shops, he says, adding that some of them came at Rs 50 per kilogram.

Research scholars from Osmania and Kakatiya University were also coming to the library to prepare for their PhD thesis, he said, adding that he never collected any fee from the visitors.