"We were welcomed by beautiful yellow flowers..."

Report on my visit to Anna Centenary Library

Jaysudha. N | I MA English

This report is about my journey to the Anna Centenary Library on 14th Oct 2022.

Since graduation ceremony was taking place in our institution, 14th and 15th Oct were supposed to be holidays. So I along with my friends Vaishnavi and Snigdha we all planned to go to the library.

At 9 am we three reached Tambaram railway station and from there we took the train and reached Guindy station. Then from Guindy Railway station we took an Auto and reached Anna Centenary Library.

My visit to Anna Centenary Library is not new. From my childhood, I have visited Anna Centenary Library the most. Every Saturday we used to go to the library. We visited the library more frequently that even the staff in the library recognized us. After finishing high school this was my first time to visit Anna library.

The Roads were familiar yet unfamiliar to me, because of the changes that have taken place in the past few years.

The Sky was dark with gray clouds and it was drizzling.

Though we were drenched in the rain, still, we were welcomed by beautiful yellow flowers as you can see in the photo (below).

Then we went inside the library after signing our names in the book register.

We took an elevator and reached the English section. It was like a paradise filled with beautiful books.

"I don't have to look far to find treasures. I discover them every time I visit a library"

- Micheal Embry

The number of books in Anna Centenary Library equals to the amount of Happiness we had on that day.

I personally liked the way the books are arranged in the library. It was easy to find our choice of books. Because in every bookshelf we could find a A4 sized paper stuck in the sides of the bookshelf which denotes the kind of books arranged in the book shelves.

I even spent some time to read the various kinds of literature in English. We literature students are used to American literature, African literature, or any other regional literatures. But they had all kinds of literature which pricked my interest on the availability of the books they had in Anna Centenary Library.

Without even wasting a second we skimmed through the books section and found few books related to our presentations such as
Oxford's publication

"A short history of English literature"

"The Faerie queen by Green Roberts"

"English social and cultural history"

"The Cambridge history of early modern English literature"

"Theatrical convention and audience response".

While searching for the right books, at times we even sat on the floor and flipped through the books. Though some gave a weird stare on us, still, we three were busy in our own world and at that time we only cared about the presentations and the upcoming exams we are supposed to face.

Before reading the books, I looked around the people and saw some were preparing for competitive exams like UPSC, TNPSC, NET etc. On the other side there were a few students who were struggling to find the books related to their college assignments.

Seeing all these once again I realized that we are also one among the competitors competing with the rest of the world to get a decent or dream job.

Seeing everyone around me studying drives me to study so hard.

After taking all these huge books we read them till 12.30 pm and then went to have lunch nearby. We walked a few kilometers, found a pleasant restaurant, and ordered a schezwan fried rice, biriyani, and chicken 65.

The above photo is which I clicked inside the restaurant. While doing this assignment I went through my gallery to select few photos of me in Anna library. But sadly, I could not find one.

Life of a photographer is sad, because they will be the ones who click the picture and no one is there to click a picture of them.

After we ate our lunch, we went for ice cream and ate it on the way to the library. Drizzling weather with ice cream is indeed a perfect combination.

Then again, we went back to the library and resumed our studies for three more hours.
Time's the only thing that will never stop and it was time for us to part from the library.

At 3.30 pm we left the library and reached back to home at 6. Before going to sleep, I rewound the day again and slept with no regrets.