This restaurateur never made it past fifth grade. Now she runs a roadside library.
| Ozar, India
The fragrance of tea brewing and the earthy aroma of round flatbreads baking fill the air. The busy kitchen rings with the sounds of steel pots clanging. Meanwhile, the restaurant’s visitors are lost in a different world, their heads buried in books or browsing shelves that are bursting with fiction and nonfiction titles.
Ajjichya Pustakanch Hotel, or Grandmother’s Library Hotel, is tucked unexpectedly along a national highway in the western Indian town of Ozar. On each restaurant table is a metal stand with a couple of books and a menu card. Some tables also have straw baskets covered with cloth and laden with books. All told, Ajjichya Pustakanch Hotel has about 5,000 books in the Hindi, Marathi, and English languages. (Stand-alone restaurants, especially in rural India, are often known as hotels despite not providing lodging.)
The founder of the restaurant library is Bhimabai Sampat Jondhale, who interacts often with visitors, eager to learn what they are reading and whether they are enjoying it. No one is required to place an order to browse the library.
Why We Wrote This
A story focused onBhimabai Sampat Jondhale never lost her passion for reading despite her limited schooling. Today, she caters to book fans while fulfilling a dream of her own.
“Everyone picks up a book”
It all started when Ms. Jondhale was running a highway tea stall and discovered that customers, while waiting for their drinks and snacks, were glued to their cellphones. She had always loved books and thought that she could offer them some reading pleasure as they waited, and as an opportunity to put down their devices. Today, the restaurant with colorful orange and green chairs has wall paintings and posters highlighting the importance of reading, as well as a poetry wall.
“Everyone picks up a book as they wait for their order,” Ms. Jondhale says. “They read at least a couple of chapters instead of scrolling on their phones. That’s a heartening sight.”
Although she was fond of reading as a child, Ms. Jondhale was married at age 11 and never went beyond the fifth grade. “Life took me on another path,” she says.
She raised her two children essentially by herself. Poverty left her with no time to indulge in reading or studying. But she always had a great memory and could still rattle off poems that she had learned in primary school.
Ms. Jondhale’s son, Pravin Jondhale, started distributing newspapers to finance his schooling and college education, while Ms. Jondhale worked on their farm with her daughter. When their land became useless because of chemicals leaching into the soil from a nearby factory, she opened the tea stall with her children in 2010. She also started catering meals for laborers who worked on expanding the highway.
“Many people criticized me, saying that a woman had no business running a tea stall and interacting with customers,” Ms. Jondhale says. “But I did not care about all that. I was determined to make a better life for my family.”
Slowly, she and her children used their savings and expanded the stall into a small restaurant with seating. Mr. Jondhale, who has a master’s degree in journalism, started a publishing house, alongside helping his mother run the tea shop. When the company shut down about 10 years ago, he was left with a stock of titles in Marathi – books that the family began placing in the restaurant.
“Customers started coming here just for our books,” Mr. Jondhale says. Seeing the books’ popularity, he and his mother began buying more for their collection and receiving book donations from individuals and organizations.
Many students and writers come to peruse the stacks. Vidyullata Hande, a lecturer at Bytco Junior College in Nashik, says the restaurant library has “an amazing vibe and takes you back to school.”
“My students really enjoyed spending time here browsing books, talking with [Ms. Jondhale], and wandering in the garden,” she adds.
Hiralal Vittal Patil, the village development officer for the Dindori subdistrict, where the restaurant library is located, says that Ms. Jondhale is performing a phenomenal service.
“She has inspired young and old to start reading in this digital age, made her library hotel a magnet for students and bibliophiles, and attracted even celebrity visitors and scholars,” he says. “From a makeshift tea stall to something of this magnitude is a stupendous achievement in a lifetime.”
Mr. Jondhale says that besides being drawn to the books, many children who come to the library enjoying visiting his mother. They treat her like a grandmother. “The love and respect that she gets from the young ones really make us happy,” he says.
Ms. Jondhale herself finds time to read a few pages or chapters every day amid her chores. “I love history and stories that have a moral,” she says. “I enjoy reading about ancient kings like Shivaji, the Maratha king, who were brave and did so much for their people.”
The rewards of reading
Beyond the library, Ms. Jondhale has begun distributing free books to hospitals and schools and organizing talks by writers, as well as workshops for children. The events usually take place in the restaurant’s garden, which is lined with mango trees and benches. On certain days, such as the birthday of former Indian president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, visitors are allowed to walk away with a free book.
One wall of the restaurant is filled with photos of Ms. Jondhale receiving as many as 85 service awards from nongovernmental and other organizations. But the family remains grounded, and Mr. Jondhale continues to deliver newspapers every morning before heading to work in the restaurant. “Publicity is short-lived, and it should not go to our heads,” he says.
For Ms. Jondhale, the true reward is seeing someone engrossed in a book.
“Books can heal your soul and give immense happiness,” she says. “They are your lifelong companions.”
