Metro rides have become an inherent part of almost every Delhiites life. More than one billion people travel in the Delhi metro on an everyday basis. Now, is that a crazy figure or what?! Despite the fact that we travel with so many humans everyday, we hardly ever feel connected to any of them (except maybe when someone talks about the Rajeev Chowk crowd!!). And who can blame us? Nobody has time to stop for a minute when we’re always rushing to be somewhere!
How about we change that a little bit? Shruti and Tarun, two regular metro commuters decided to begin this change. In an attempt to spread the joy of reading and sharing books, they began with ‘Books On The Delhi Metro’ on Instagram and Twitter.
The basic concept, which was started in the London Underground almost a year back and has recently been made more popular with Emma Watson dropping copies of The Handmaid’s Tale in London, is to give out free books to people who travel in the metro. They have a group of almost 15 volunteers, fondly called the ‘book fairies’, who help them with dropping books on different metro lines. The next step is to give hints on their social media page about where the book is until someone picks it up.
People who find the books post with the #BooksOnTheDelhiMetro informing that the book has been picked. They can then read the book and pass it on in the same fashion. What if the books don’t get returned, you ask? Well, ‘That is just a risk we’re willing to take but we believe people will start sending them back!’ says Shruti.
They recently teamed up with HarperCollins to give out copies of Baaz by Anuja Chauhan and also gave out a couple of Harry Potter books to celebrate #20YearsOfHarryPotter.
So basically they’ve managed to turn our hectic metro rides into cute little treasure hunts! Follow them on Instagram to know when they drop a book on your line, because, who doesn’t like a good free read, right?!
Featured Image: booksonthedelhimetro on Instagram
