Asia’s biggest sports library in dire straits

Asia’s biggest and probably only sports library is in dire straits because its hosts, the Mumbai Cricket Association, constantly embroiled in the petty politicking among its own fractious committee members, are seemingly not interested in its welfare and upkeep, leading to its steady decline in recent years.

The Dr H D Kanga Memorial Library. Image courtesy Mid-Day Infomedia Ltd

The 63-year-old Dr H D Kanga Memorial Library, named after a former MCA president and all-rounder who toured England with the ‘Indian’ team in 1911 and was a BCCI vice-president and national selector besides, has been housed at the Wankhede Stadium after it was shifted there from the Brabourne Stadium (Cricket Club of India) in 1975.

The Kanga Library has about 1,000 members (me included) and a collection of about 13,000 sports books, some of ancient vintage and priceless in their value, of which possibly around 10,000 are on cricket. This includes the entire collection of Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack from 1864 plus a complete set of Indian Cricket published by the CCI from 1946- 47, a complete set of the BCCI Statistical Annuals and Playfair Cricket Annuals, all annuals from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Pakistan, Sportsweek Cricket Quarterly, The Cricketer (from 1921), Playfair Cricket Monthly, Wisden Cricket Monthly etc. All books on Indian cricket that have been published from the earliest times can be found in the library.

The library also has other Indian and foreign magazines like Sports Illustrated, Sports & Pastime, Sportsweek, Sportsworld, Sportstar, Football Illustrated, World Soccer, Soccer World, FA News, Track & Field News, Athletic News, Swimming Times, World Tennis etc.

The football section too is quite illuminating as it contains autobiographies and biographies of the world’s leading footballers, histories of the beautiful game, coaching manuals for children, rule books etc.

No doubt, the cricket section is the most popular among the readers but books on chess, bridge and football are also lapped up by the members. Among the luminaries who used to frequent the library in the past were Madhav Mantri, Wilson Jones, Vijay Merchant, Sunil Gavaskar, Dilip Vengsarkar, Jal Pardivala (athletics official), several bridge and chess players besides coaches, umpires, referees and sports officials of all hues. Vijay Merchant, the former India opening batsman, himself donated his collection of books to the library as evidenced from his autograph seen on the opening pages of several books.

The plight of the library was highlighted by senior cricket writer and library member Clayton Murzello in his exclusive report for Mid-Day yesterday.

The report highlighted how books lie carelessly scattered around on the tables, dust piling up on them, attacked and consumed by pests. This includes moth-eaten and damaged copies of the 1885-86 and 1887 editions of the Wisden Almanacs, which historians call the ‘Bible of cricket’. The Guardian newspaper only most recently estimated that the cost of a complete set of Wisden Almanacs is 135,000 pounds, the report said.

Stacks of other infected books, apparently waiting to be treated and bound, also lie scattered around while bound volumes of old magazines have been bundled into bags and heaped upon the cupboards storing the overflowing books. The library’s secretary and treasurer Ranjit Kapadia has been quoted as having said that the first phase of treating the books has been completed, but the next one is “on the cards” and about 300 books were damaged because of leakages. The MCA had sanctioned Rs 5 lakhs for the maintenance and digitization of the library systems.

One of the great fans of the library was the legendary Sunil Gavaskar, who wrote in a commemorative volume released on the occasion of the 50^th anniversary celebrations in 2000: “I recall with great pleasure the many visits to the Library to read books written by great cricketers and writers and it never ceased to surprise me how the library always had the book you wanted. It was a great learning process and inspirational too after reading about the exploits of the greats and how they worked hard to get where they were.”

That, of course, is the distant past. The fortunes of the Kanga Library suffered a major reversal in the late 1990s when the MCA reduced the space the library was accommodated in by half to build a conference room on its ground floor premises. The renovation process, dwindling utilization of the library due to the declining reading habit among the general public, inexperienced staff, missing, stolen or unreturned books etc., all contributed to the declining fortunes of the hallowed institution. The abject state of the library today is only a culmination of the changed circumstances and the years of neglect by the powers that be.

Perhaps, the MCA has been frozen into a state of inaction because of the interminable wait for a new building which will materialize when the third phase of the Wankhede Stadium, which also houses the spanking Cricket Centre (headquarters of the BCCI), is complete. But there is no assurance whether the library will be further downgraded or restored to its original pomp.

“It’s sad that in spite of writing to them several times and raising the issue at the AGM since 2007, nothing has changed,” first-class cricket umpire Marcus Couto, who once donated a collection of cricket videos to the library, told Sportskeeda. “I used to see white ants and silver fish all around the books.”

The cricket and books enthusiast had once sent Raju Parelakar, who does pest control work at the CCI and is a cricketer himself, to do the work. But he used to return with a sorry face. “No use binding the books which are in bad condition, it will make them worse,” suggested Couto. “If the 1916 Wisden was saved, its value would have been more than Rs 1 lakh today. Only a few copies are left of them in the world and five are in India.”

But all is not lost, hopefully. It is learnt that a ‘Save the Kanga Library committee’ is being formed to retrieve the situation and take immediate action to prevent damage to more books. A source said that the MCA chief has been briefed about the problem and a way is being suggested to revive the fortunes of the library which should actually be considered as a national institution housing the rich and colourful history of Indian sport, right from the colonial times till the present day in its several tomes.

All those interested in the history of Indian sport and Indian cricket and sports and cricket in general too – and this could include the Ministry of Sport, BCCI, IOA, MCA and other sports bodies and sports loving organizations and individuals – must rally to the support of the Kanga Library and prevail upon the powers that be to revive it and restore it to its original glory.