The scene is set for Cubbon Reads, a community reading initiative.

The writer joins Cubbon Reads on a Saturday morning, with a book and a coffee. Photo: Anita Rao Kashi

Around me are hundreds of strangers: solo readers, duos and trios on a single sheet, groups of friends, families, some with pets – all united in a love of reading and the outdoors. Any conversations are whispered. There is a sense of comfort and camaraderie.

No silence please: is this open-air park the world’s most quirky library?

The group began in December 2022, when friends Shruti Sah, a 31-year-old marketer and baker, and Harsh Snehanshu, a 33-year-old co-founder of writing app YourQuote, began cycling weekly to Cubbon Park – officially Sri Chamarajendra Park – a 300-acre (120-hectare) green space that was laid out in 1870 and has become associated with colonial-era administrator Mark Cubbon.

Each Saturday morning, they would sit near a giant tree and read for a few hours.

“The experience of lounging on the grass under the canopy of trees felt immensely comfortable and nostalgic about our childhood,” Sah says.

Cubbon Reads co-founders Shruti Sah (right) and Harsh Snehanshu. Photo: Anita Rao Kashi

When the two described their ritual on their Instagram pages, friends became interested.

The Cubbon Reads Instagram page was created to invite others to read together. On the first official session, in January 2023, only six people showed up – but the ball was set in motion.

In May, things exploded: a reel on the page went viral and on the following Saturday, more than 300 readers showed up. “Since then, on average, over 500 people come every Saturday,” says Snehanshu.

The book stack at the end of each Saturday session of Cubbon Reads. Photo: Anita Rao Kashi
Cubbon Reads has caught not just Bangalore’s imagination but has created tiny ripples across the world. Chapters have sprouted in other parts of Bangalore and the country, as well as in far-flung cities such as Kuala Lumpur, Amsterdam, Melbourne, London, Dubai, Paris, Johannesburg, Seattle, Boston and New York.

Sah and Snehanshu are currently aware of and in touch with 70 “affiliate chapters”, all of which use the “Reads” suffix.

“It has been really humbling to see the wide acceptance the community has had,” says Snehanshu.

We absolutely don’t participate in any endorsements or collaborations or promotions of any nature, including book launches by authors
Shruti Sah, co-founder of Cubbon Reads

Much of Cubbon Reads’ success rests on its simplicity.

“Silence is mandated; there is no book discussion; the community needs to be welcoming to all kinds of readers – beginners and elites alike; no promotions and no user data collection,” says Sah.

“At the heart of it, Cubbon Reads and all its affiliated chapters promote reading for pleasure, not for the needless intellectualisation around books that a book club does. It’s reading for which people come together.

Some of the attendees of Cubbon Reads in Bangalore, India. Photo: Anita Rao Kashi

“We absolutely don’t participate in any endorsements or collaborations or promotions of any nature, including book launches by authors,” she adds.

The co-founders do not even work their own crowd, apart from nods to and short whispered conversations with a few regulars.

“When I found Cubbon Reads, I was drawn to it because it was not serious and formal,” says Snehali Tagat, a 25-year-old solutions consultant who attends whenever she can.

Books being read by participants in Kuala Lumpur Reads in the Malaysian capital, one of 70 worldwide “affiliate chapters” of Cubbon Reads. Photo: Instagram/@kualalumpurreads

“It made me feel like a part of a community without being forced to socialise, without the pressure of having to be a serious reader.

“The first time I went, I read only about three pages and spent the rest of the time watching clouds go by. But instead of feeling guilty about not even getting through a whole chapter, I could relish the experience for what it was and it felt good.

“That’s what Cubbon Reads is to me, the space to just read or not.”

Cubbon Park is an oasis in India’s tech capital, Bangalore. Photo: Shutterstock

It is perhaps this acceptance that has prompted other interest groups to borrow from its playbook.

The park’s readers are now joined by members of Cubbon Paints, Cubbon Writes, Cubbon Knits and Cubbon Folds (origami), who all come “to create together in silence, with experiences of attendees cross-pollinating each other”, says Snehanshu.

Cubbon Reads has caught on at a time when India is seeing an increased muzzling of freedoms, including access to public spaces, and it is tempting to see the overwhelming response as resistance.

The ideal achievement of this movement will be when people feel free and safe to go to any park and lie down to read or even get lost in their dreams, without a formal community set-up
Shruti Sah, co-founder of Cubbon Reads

In April, the park management issued a new set of regulations, which, among other things, forbids the eating of food, games, public displays of affection and tree climbing.

“Certainly, this is a way to at least initiate conversations around reclaiming public spaces by citizens,” says Sah. “Parks are among the most democratic and free public spaces one can enjoy. Seeing a few people sitting on the grass in parks and reading draws so many others to join in.

“The ideal achievement of this movement will be when people feel free and safe to go to any park and lie down to read or even get lost in their dreams, without a formal community set-up.”

For many, though, that community will remain the chief attraction.

Says Cubbon regular Bhuvi Kalley, a 21-year-old philosophy student: “The atmosphere of reading in silence with hundreds of others is really magical.”