Kutub khanah
Originally uploaded by Constance Wiebrands.
Please excuse the bad drawing; I tried to do it on the PC but it ended up characterless – all straight lines and squares. This depiction is probably not 100% accurate (were there that many books? was the cabinet smaller? larger? messier?) but of course I don’t have any pictures of the kutub khanah, and drew it from memory.
My childhood access to libraries was very limited. In primary school we had no library. This is a picture of the only ‘library’ that was available to us. At the back of the classroom was a wooden cabinet, propped up against the wall, that was usually kept locked by Teacher. On rare occasions she (Teacher was always a she) would open it up to reveal books on some shelves held in by bits of wire.
We called the cabinet itself the kutub khanah, ‘library’, as far as I remember. I don’t think the term is used much in contemporary Malay these days. It might have Arabic roots – if I am correct kitab is the Arabic for ‘book’, so kutub might be the plural form. (The word kitab is used in Malay also, but usually has connotations of holy book, or scriptures, eg kitab Al-Qur’an or kitab Injil ‘Bible’.) My Collins Gem Malay English dictionary does list the word khanah (Arabic also? Not sure) and defines it as ‘storehouse’. So if I am correct kutub khanah literally means ‘book storehouse’. The more usual word for ‘library’ in Malay is perpustakaan. The National Library of Malaysia is the Perpustakaan Negara Malaysia.
The books in the kutub khanah were all usually very old and dog-eared, with English language books on one side, and Malay language books on the other. One year we had a few Chinese language graphic novels in our library as well – Teacher had confiscated them off one of our classmates and said that since she (our classmate) enjoyed them so much, they might as well be shared with everyone. They were very popular with the class – even with me, although I couldn’t read the Chinese. She returned them at the end of the term. I wonder if any teacher would be able to get away with doing that now…
We were only ever allowed one book per session, and we were never allowed to take the books home. I think I snuck one home once but was then completely stressed at the thought that a) Mum would spot it and I’d get into trouble, or b) Cherryripe would tell Mum and I’d get into trouble, or c) Teacher would note that I’d taken it home, and I’d get into trouble. The next day I brought it back, and during recess time, put it back by squeezing it in through the cracks in the cabinet. I’m sure the book was much damaged by that exercise!
I remember the kutub khanah falling over one day in our classroom. It always lived at the back of the room, leaning against the wall, either in one corner or in the middle of the wall. When the kutub khanah fell it made a horrific crash and completely distracted the whole class. After we helped it up Teacher decided we had to open it up and make sure it was alright – it was, of course, but all the books had fallen out of their restraints and had to be rearranged. Luckily it never fell over when open, despite sometimes being a bit precarious. I don’t know why it wasn’t designed more like a usual bookcase. Now I think of it, when open, the kutub khanah was shaped somewhat like a book itself!
In high school we did have a library – a large room with shelves and furniture for sitting on and quiet reading. All I remember of that library was mucking around with a couple of my classmates and having the entire Oxford English Dictionary fall on my left hand. Very painful! The incident ended up getting us thrown out of the library by the teacher librarian. We never went there much anyway because you couldn’t utter a word in the room without being glared at or shushed. The only book I remember from that library (apart from the OED) was The Marsh Arabs by Wilfred Thesiger. I don’t know how it managed to stay a part of the collection – we girls found it titillating for the picture of the naked Arab man standing on his reed canoe and used to giggle at it in the stacks.
6 Comments
perhaps part of the reason why i like reading your blog is that i like libraries. I remember my high school librarian slash fascist. She was such a terror, we feared her more than our teachers. We would be sent out the library if we ever got caught making a sound, even if it’s just a murmur. But not before she’s done hollering at us and humiliating us in front of the entire library.
Thanks, CW. These last couple of posts have brought back many fond memories of fevered reading periods in my primary school library, of my father’s den filled to the ceiling with hardbound reference tomes and yellowing copies of pulp science fiction, and of the weekly visits to the second=hand bookshop that was actually a half-dozen open book cases on a sidewalk.
Perhaps it’s notjust access to libraries in one’s childhood as access to books (and comics, magazines, etc), and learning to read for enjoyment, that leads to a lifelong love of words and books.
Oh I had something similar whilst growing up – in a dark, musky room that smelt like cats, my English tuition teacher had all these classic children’s books mostly in hard backs and mostly from England.
I was in that class for 5 years and as a senior you get to go to that back room to get the books out for all the other kids, and you get to choose. It was always a thrill. 🙂
Thanks jl. I think it’s sad that so many kids have bad experiences with the librarians in their schools 🙁
Hi toxicpurity 🙂 Oh lucky you to have read science fiction as a child! I didn’t start reading SF until we came to Perth and there were public libraries where I could borrow some… You are definitely right about love of books not being dependent on libraries alone, of course 🙂
Hi Mooiness 🙂 I wonder if that style of bookcase still exists..
I probably WOULD have dobbed you in…
I’d forgotten all about the kutub khanah. Ah, childhood memories…
Cherry, I know! 🙂