Why borrow books when you can borrow humans?

Running your hand along the edges of a well-bound book, sniffing in the unique scent of its pages and getting transported to different worlds through the stories is a magical feeling. But what if the books could be more magical? What if they were made of flesh and blood and a beating heart? What if you could savour even the most minute details like the quiver of a lip and the arch of a brow every second of the story? This is what the Human Library offers its readers. 

The Human Library, which was started by Ronni Abergel in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 2000 to tackle stereotypes and prejudices through dialogue, loans real people as books that narrate personal anecdotes and beliefs which the readers then question and discuss. 

The first chapter of Human Library in Chennai was held at the British Council recently. Sailakshmi, the organiser of the event, says, “The first Human Library project was started in Indore and has since expanded to cities like Hyderabad, Delhi and Mumbai. I wanted to start a Chennai chapter of the project because the idea of real life people being treated as books was very interesting to me. 

Initially, I was skeptical about Chennai accepting the concept. But once the project was announced, I was proved wrong. In fact, I received close to 75 calls from interested readers and books each day during the past week.” 

The inaugural chapter of the Human Library Chennai hosted 12 books for over 100 readers. “Since we had such an imbalanced ratio of books to readers, instead of one-on-one conversations, we arranged three different sessions by each book for groups of up to six. 

The readers could choose two books from the list and each session lasted about 30 to 40 minutes. The books — ranging from psychologists, people who gave up high-paying jobs to teach and transgenders — chose to share personal experiences about a part of their life they were passionate about. 

Psychologist GL Sampoorna and Jessika, a transgender, were the most opted for books from the 12,” she adds. Sampoorna, one of the books, spoke about forgiveness — a subject in which she has a doctoral thesis. 

“I was surprised that so many people chose to listen about forgiveness, because people are generally reluctant to discuss the subject. 

Forgiveness is a process rather than a decision you make one day and move on with. I narrated anecdotes about forgiveness from my own life. Even though I spoke about the same subject in three sessions, it felt like each session was a new chapter from the same book because the audience drew new stories and aspects of the experience each time. 

The most interesting part about the human library for me is that to become a book, you have to be open and willing to speak about the most personal aspects of your life. It works the same way for the readers. This leads to healthy social interactions between people,” says Sampoorna. The Human Library Chennai is planning to host a session every month.