Reading Delhi: An Interview with Molina & Paridhi from Delhi Reads by Anushka Bidani

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*This interview has been edited for clarity.

Anushka Bidani: I saw that you were featured in an article recently about pop culture! How was that? 

Molina Singh: That was very cool! It just came out of nowhere. But it was very kind of them to interview us and ask for our opinion. Plus, the topic was quite fun!

Paridhi Puri: It was also very pertinent to our club’s theme, and why we started Delhi Reads as a whole. Ultimately, it is about fostering community and friendships through a shared love for media and pop culture. I feel that all of us, somewhere, have been part of online communities, or we know people who have the same interests as us, but it’s a different kind of joy to meet people with whom you have no connections. That six degrees kind of thing where you’re meeting somebody completely new and then they become such a nice part of your life that you see them every month somewhere. It’s a good thing for your emotional health, too, right? Emotional well being.

Molina & Paridhi’s comments in Nona Uppal’s recent Mint Lounge article

AB: You had mentioned something in that article, and you touched upon it right now too, that reading is usually a very solitary activity. But, through Delhi Reads, you’re trying to expand the ambit and change that definition: reading does not necessarily have to be solitary; it can be something that people do in groups. And that’s something you mention quite a lot on your socials also, I’ve observed. Is this idea something that you went in with when you were starting the book club — that reading can bring people together?

MS: Definitely! I think that is why our sort-of bio / tagline / or wherever we address Delhi Reads, it says: Community-First Book Club, because that has sort of been our motto going forward. Book clubs have existed for a long time. And yes, they do help you build accountability towards your reading goal and talk to other people about a common book or theme. But again, there’s a lot of joy of reading that is stripped away because you’re not connecting with the book on that level. We were telling Nona [Uppal] something similar that there is of course an individual’s connection with a book which happens, of course, on an individual basis. But when you meet another person or group of people who feel the same way as you, or interpret something very similarly to what you have from something that was written by an author in a completely different tone, that feeling when you are like, oh, you see me as I see myself, that feeling is very precious. Which is why we always focus more on community, community building, lots of activities to get everyone together. Finding a book club in your city and then choosing to go there as a stranger is a very daunting activity. You could always choose to instead sit at home and just chill on the weekend, which is what all of us do, rather than taking the conscious effort to go to a book club and sit between 70 strangers. It’s a very daunting task; but when people do come and break that ice — I think, in that moment, we redeem ourselves as a book club, because it is that moment which gets everyone together, and lets them become very fond of the idea of meeting these strangers who grow on to become friends.

PP: Yeah! Also, to add to that, I feel reading has always been a solitary activity for me. As an introvert, especially, it is just my own bubble where I can go; it’s fabulous. But, I think over the years, our generation has lost so much of our attention span to a range of contributing factors. A lot of people in our generation struggle with this – they just don’t have that attention span that we had in our childhood which let us stay up reading all night. So I feel when there’s a community like this, it gives people an accountability to read. For example, for myself, some of our books of the month are books that I wouldn’t have picked up if they weren’t the books of the month. But because I had a responsibility, and I knew I wanted to discuss every aspect of it with people, I finished those books even though sometimes it took me like 04:00 a.m. of the previous night. But that’s the fun of it! And a lot of times, people who attend our session — they haven’t even completed the book. And that’s okay too! I feel if you are coming and you’re listening to people talk about something, that just gives you an impetus to go and maybe pick it back up again. And that is, I think, half my job done. 

AB: So was that the prime motivation for starting the club – building a community? Or was it a love for books? Could you have built a community around something that wasn’t books, in particular? 

MS: I think it was a mix of both and, also, neither. It came out of a very personal question — because, as we’ve spoken before, and as Pari said, right now, the pandemic, among other things, completely closed institutions like school and college. It left us very lonely with the realisation that we would not have communities or groups of friends/acquaintances or people to go back to and talk to and have a routine with post-college. That’s the thing to see. We were very surprised by the fact that adulthood is just going to be so monotonous and would not lend us that space where we do bump into strangers and people with all sorts of opinions every day. So I think it came out of this, again, personal question, personal need; but also then seeing our friends, people we know, echo the same sentiment. We thought if we couldn’t find anything, we had to start it. It manifested itself in the form of a book club because books and reading and literature and talking about culture is something that is at the very core of both mine and Pari’s interests and personalities. But, yeah, it could have been any other club. Books, though, I believe, they let you talk about so much more than any other form of media. And Delhi Reads is not limited to a book club. A lot of reading clubs restrict themselves to the book of the month, and very technically discussing the various themes and literary decisions and whatnot. We keep our conversations lighter. We relate it to contemporary themes, we related it to Barbenheimer, we have related it to social media. We do anything that helps you feel as a part of a group — which is what’s essential. That is the objective. But, yeah, according to me, it could have been anything — it stemmed from that need.  

AB: When you say that in the wake of the pandemic we were all starving for these kinds of communities and these kinds of companionship, I think you’re hitting on something really critical. And Delhi, especially, in the wake of the pandemic, was so devastating that people were really just parched for these kind of communities. In that context, I feel like the name itself is something that’s so striking. When you say Delhi Reads, do you think the city itself has influenced the way you think about this club, the way you conduct your activities? Because there are so many book clubs that pick up their names from the space where they were born. So has Delhi, specifically, influenced anything you do in the club? 

MS: Oh, 100%. One thing we always say when people are asking us about the name and where it originated is the fact that Delhi comes before Reads. So the club is very consciously and intrinsically rooted in Delhi. Delhi itself became the reason that we were able to escalate this book club. Had it not been for, of course, the weather that it lends us — when it started, we were starting from scratch with no money or resources; just the two of us, and some people just as passionate. Delhi’s weather, its open spaces, its parks, its gardens, and, of course, its people who are really enthusiastic about it…Delhi has, and I don’t want to romanticise it, but it has a sort of readership that has its own voice and is very — it has left its hues in our club. I don’t know how to put it. 

PP: Delhi is a melting pot of cultures as well. If you look at the demographic of our book club, a lot of it is just university students or people who have just graduated, who are working their first few jobs in their early 20s. These people, in particular, they are very passionate about — I think there’s a growing change, I was reading about this, where people of our generation, they don’t consider work their main priority. They separate it from their identity. And when you do that, you automatically search for new pursuits. You search for new things to invest your time in; invest is a wrong word to use, but just a more worthwhile quality of your time. And I think that’s what I’ve been seeing, because a lot of these people, they are just, if not very well read, they want to know more. They are curious. They turn up every month, even though they might not talk that much, but they just want to listen. And that kind of quality, the fact that we have people who come and want to do that, I think it’s one of the best parts.

MS: It’s very gratifying that people do turn up. I was thinking about all aspects of Delhi and how the metro—we host our sessions all over the city, and the metro really helps us get people together and get them in such large volumes.  

PP: One time, in one of our sessions, it was raining. It was a March session, it was raining — and we didn’t expect people to show up. We thought, “10-15 log aayenge” (10-15 people will come). The original venue was Lodhi Gardens but, since it was raining, we switched it to IHC and in IHC, there is no covered space. So when we all gathered, we were about 20 people, and we just sat in their lawns for some time until they kicked us out because, they said, you need to have permission to do anything. Until then, we had like 25 people already sitting together. All of us walked to Lodhi Garden and then a lot of people proceeded to get lost. They were all just going in different directions. So we started calling people, oh, you have to come here. And by this time more people have joined us in the Lodhi Gardens location. So it was like, it was raining—it was not raining, not really, it was a very nice weather. You’re just walking. I think Molly posted a story of this with that song from Barfi!  Which one is that? I’m forgetting. It’s Sunidhi Chauhan.

MS & AB: “Kyon.”

PP: Yeah. So it’s just one of those moments when, because you’re the co founders, you are like, oh, this needs to happen. So when you see that, in retrospect, you’re able to realize that all of that just came together to be something that is going to be such a good memory.  

drenched in love

AB: I think you both have grown up in Delhi, right?

MS: Yeah.

PP: But, again, we both come from very different parts of Delhi. I come from East Delhi, and Molly is from North-West Delhi.

AB: Same!

PP: These are not the places where you take people. So far, we have attended sessions in Central and South Delhi and, so— you know, I asked people, which part of the city do I give the vibe of when they interact with me? And all of them said Central and —

AB: Central Delhi. Yas, exactly.

PP: I was so surprised? Because I don’t think I do, if you talk to me; I don’t know.

MS: But I think that also stems from biases about the parts of cities. Like, oh, you’re well read, you must be from a certain part of the city.

PP: I was asking Yoko, one of our friends who we actually met through DR, and she said, it’s probably also because of the fact that I’ve hung out with you in central Delhi because of the sessions. That was so interesting to me.  

AB: The kind of associations you create and the kind of experiences you have… I think that’s why talking about DR being born in the wake of the pandemic in Delhi is so significant, because Delhi, in the wake of the pandemic was—I keep coming back to this—but it was absolutely horrifying. And I think through DR, you guys and the community you have built, everyone has had a chance to see Delhi through fresh eyes in a completely new light. And you said that you don’t want to romanticise Delhi, but Delhi lends itself very easily to romanticisation.

MS: It actually does.

AB: It really, truly does.

PP: Both of us have been accused of romanticising Delhi. It’s like, how can you romanticize Delhi? It’s so unsafe and blah, blah, blah.

be gay, romanticise Delhi

AB: It’s a crime worth committing; it’s a beautiful city. You also talked about how we are a generation who wants pursuits outside of work. We want work to just be a very small part of our life. And I think that’s one of the reasons why I started Headcanon [Magazine] too; because I wanted something that was outside of my life, outside of my work, outside of my relationships. Just something for myself. So how do you feel about starting DR and building this up from scratch—And I think, you are at eight months right now and you already have more than 1000 members. Is that right?

MS: Yeah, it’s 1500 members, actually.

AB: That’s absolutely insane, the kind of effort you put into this. How has building DR contributed to who you are? And how do you see yourself changing in the wake of this evolution? 

MS: I think, honestly, for me, I don’t know if Paridhi has the same experience, but it was definitely, okay, so I have this superstition, right? I feel that if I get too worked up and have too many expectations from something, it never lands. It just doesn’t pan out the way I want it to because I feel like I’ve put up too many expectations; whether it’s an outfit that I wanted to wear to work or a day where I’m meeting a friend or even like a life project or a goal. And DR was actually started when I was so done with life that it was something that was just on the side. I never expected it to be anything like what it is right now. And I had so much going on in life like, I feel, a 21 year old does. So it was just born out of, of course, a lot of all the thoughts and all the energy that we put together, never to disregard or trivialize that, but off of a spiff is what I mean. So, personally, it was very nice and—this could be because of what my mental health was at that point, but it was a very light thing for me. Again, I had college going on, so that was there. So to watch it escalate is something that makes me believe in my superstition even more because this was something that we just did without having any expectations that we would be calling this many people or we would have so many numbers. Today, people—friends or a very close relations are like, oh what? So even again today when someone tells me that DR is featured in a newspaper or was mentioned by this author or was on Twitter for this, I feel very happy. But I still don’t feel that sort of anxious excitement that should follow a project that you’ve literally kickstarted. And I’m happy for that because I feel like the moment I will start attaching expectations to it, it will diminish. So, yeah, to answer your question, I just went on a personal side note, but building DR, I think, has been a great experience because, yes, as you said, it has changed me a lot also. I never really knew that—again, I wouldn’t say I didn’t know that I was capable of it, because I don’t think I should say that. I have done projects like this before, maybe for institutions and workplaces and whatnot; but still, people’s perception of it just wows me every time. The fact that people actually care about what I’m building; something which I never thought would impact people. In a way, when you see your work’s impact on another person in real time…that day I went to a party and someone, who I had probably interacted last with in school and who’s not related to the literature/reading circle or any common circles at all, came up to me and said they were really liking the things I was doing with Delhi Reads. It has real potential, they said. And then a lot of these instances have happened. I’m like, oh, you see the work I do. You care, and you noticed. And that just leaves me so awestruck and so grateful. So I think those things, the fact that my work can make real impact is one thing that I’ve noticed through Delhi Reads, because, again, it was happening. I feel like it was happening, but maybe I was much younger to understand it, or maybe I was too invested in the places it was stemming from (working for institutions, organizations, etc). It has also, in a way, lended me a lot of power as an individual figure that people are like, oh, that’s the founder of Delhi Reads. So I’m like, oh, thank you. Thank you for giving me that title. I think Pari can tell now, and maybe I’ll just find some pointers to speak about from that.

PP: No, you’re so right, actually. No, I was actually thinking very deeply about DR in general. I was just thinking that I cannot imagine this year without Delhi Reads. I feel it just kind of anchored me to reality in a way. My plans for 2023 were supposed to be very different. I was supposed to go to grad school this year, but that didn’t work out. So I feel very blessed. Delhi Reads coming into my life was just like this bhagwan ki den (God’s gift); not bhagwan (God) because Molly was the one who did it. I’m so grateful to her. Because we are planning so much constantly, I feel we don’t just get to tell each other these things. I’m so grateful for your text that day, which spiralled into everything, because when I think about who I am right now with regards to my mental health, what I’m doing with life currently, everything, every aspect of my personality, I feel DR has just fit in so well, like a puzzle piece. So I’m just very grateful. And even when we have some nuisance, it just feels so little when compared to what all it has given us till now. Like, she was talking about the fact that people recognize us now and, I don’t know, it’s just so nice to be validated that way. I grew up, because of my schooling, in an environment where I achieved a lot, but I really wasn’t validated for it, especially through my peers. So the sense of respect that people our age have given us because of this…people write to us in our DMs full-on messages, three-four paragraph long messages, about how grateful they are to us. They just make your day and gives you so much purpose. So it’s been a really important thing, definitely. And it has allowed me to—I used to think that I could never be a founder founder. Even though I used to make fun of startups all the time which are really weird, you know the ones I’m talking about – with the really weird problem statements. And I thought, ye kar sakte hai to hum bhi kuch-na-kuch to kar hi lenge (if these people can do it, then we’ll also definitely manage to do something). But I never figured out that the entire point of it is to do something that you know innately and you’re passionate about. Like, with me, for DR, it just comes so naturally to me. It doesn’t feel like work at all, the book-related parts of it. So it just feels very nice here. 

reason #84 why winter evenings are god-tier

AB: I think that’s very correct: ye log kar sakte hai to hum kyun nahi kar sakte (if these people can do it, then why can’t we). Because there are so many horrible, shitty ideas in the world and so many horrible, shitty startups.

MS: You have no idea. I worked in the startup space for quite a while. I don’t feel that there are a lot of good ideas.

PP: But all the bad ideas are getting so much funding, too. What’s happening?

AB: Creating startups is something that’s become a vogue, and because it is in vogue, everyone wants to do it. But the fact that you’re doing something that you’re passionate about, and that you’re actually passionate about making a real change, that’s just so heartwarming and different and significant.

MS: You’re so nice, Anushka!

PP: You’re so nice, actually. I think where our approach, thankfully, differs is that we never started or approached DR like a CV bullet point. So many people start out their pages or ventures, which they will do for six months to one year—all those Girl Up kind of things. Because they know that it’s supposed to be like one bullet point in their CV somewhere that I did this for community outreach or social impact. But we just started it because we really wanted to have a community and discuss books. It has, of course, gone on to become bigger than that, but I feel the core of it still remains the same. We personally are doing well with our professional lives too. It’s not related to DR at all.

MS: Exactly! And what Pari said — this came out of a real passion. The thing is, we didn’t even want to make it like a startup but it has scaled and, again, we’re very grateful for that. It has scaled to a level where if two people were managing it, it would very easily disintegrate and shatter, and not have its authenticity and the integrity that it currently holds. To protect that and to build on that, we had to take that route of scaling. We would love to have more resources for our members. We just did a collaboration, it just got formalized, with a popular chain that I’m not supposed to tell right now; and we were so happy. Not because it was lending us their platform and their space and whatnot—of course, that’s there too—but they gave us things for our members and we were like, oh my god, our members will get this. We’re just so happy because they come all this way and always show us support. So we just want more things, more incentives for our members. So, again, I think a lot of these startups, as Pari said, are CV bullet points, but ours was an idea that was just like, even if 50 people come, we’ll be so grateful. And then it just escalated. But it was out of a pure need for community, for friendships, and for getting together.

AB: I think even beyond collaboration and incentives—the fact that you’re giving people the opportunity to meet these authors that they would never have the chance to meet otherwise. Like, you recently had a session with the author of Desperately Seeking Shah Rukh, and that’s insane because how would you otherwise ever have access to Ms. Bhattacharya if it wasn’t for Delhi Reads? That was an insane session.

MS: Thank you. I have seen this one thing around me, because I was part of literary circuits in college, a major chunk of our energy as an institution would go into getting prominent academics, professors and authors to come in and speak. But your access to them there, or even someone like—I won’t name—but popular publishers hosting dialogues or popular agencies or, I don’t know, bookstores hosting talks: I feel like I had said this to Nona also; that they literally put the author or the speaker on a pedestal, very literally, because they have that whole stand that separates the author and the moderator from the general public. The most that the general public can do is just raise their hand and ask one question that gets answered in the last 15 minutes. I really do not like that format because, of course, the author should speak and have the time to share whatever they want, but those people have come to see the author and individually connect with them. The thing with Delhi Reads is, if you saw the session in real time, Shrayana [Bhattacharya] just came and, of course, she’s such a revered author, but she just came, sat on a chair that was amongst all of us. There was no literal pedestal; and we just chatted. She’s telling us anecdotes from visiting Shah Rukh’s house, and she’s telling us things about Bollywood. It felt like you have a friend who just did something and is sharing it with you. That sort of connection with an author is what we want to build, because, of course, you can always go to an Author Talk, but that personal connection with an author is what matters. At the end of the day, I think the takeaways from that session were very warm. She took a whole chunk of time, spent a whopping 40 minutes, just signing books, tissue papers, photographs, talking to the barista. Of course, that’s 100% her deed, all kudos go to her because she was so warm and kind. But again, I’m so grateful that that is the space we could have with this session, and not one where it’s just one-way.

fuck the patriarchy

AB: When you choose authors, are you choosing people who are your favourites or who you think are going to add something to the club? Or is it authors who are in trend right now, who people are talking about? What is the process of choosing authors and books for every session?

PP: I think the first priority is that they live in Delhi so that they can come.

MS: That is a very real thing.

PP: Yeah, but, I feel what you said about them, definitely—I won’t say being in vogue—but they are emerging authors. They are authors that readers, at least a particular niche of it, is seeking to know. I was talking to Molly a few days back that a poet like Richard Siken, somebody who is a legend for terminally online people; but if you go offline in real life or if you even go to these publishing houses, talk to editors et al., I don’t think they’ve even heard of the guy. Or if they have heard, they don’t consider him to be anything special. On Twitter, Tumblr, he’s a legend, a celebrity. But I feel that kind of perception — there are authors that mean so much to a particular niche. We just want to connect our community with authors that they seem to vibe with. With our session with Michael Creighton, I was surprised with the turnout because I don’t think a lot of people read poetry like that. But so many people turned up, and the conversation we had about his poetry and also about Delhi and so many different cultural aspects of it was so invigorating. So, definitely, I feel this kind of audience connect needs to be there when we are deciding authors. But I’m also all for highlighting people who may not necessarily be well known. I feel that their work talks.

all we need are love songs (Delhi’s version)

AB: Speaking as someone who is a terminally online person—and I know for a fact that so are you both—do you think your decision making is influenced more by the discourses that happen online or those that happen offline? Someone like Siken, for instance, is really big globally and in the online fan fiction complex. But within India, have you seen a difference in the kind of authors that are emerging offline versus online? And are you tapped into those conversations? 

PP: That’s an interesting question. I don’t know how many Indian authors, fiction and non-fiction, we are reading exactly. We have some really great authors — just go through the nominee list of the JCB Prize, and you will find some excellent fiction authors even in regional languages. But I don’t think they are prominent online, I don’t know a lot of these authors that we are talking about like Siken. Authors like Siken come with so much baggage of a fandom which has been there for years and years. I don’t think these authors have cultivated that yet. I hope that there are some Indian authors down the line who become a trend, like Emily Henry or Taylor Jenkins [Reid]. Whenever they release a book, it’s kind of like a Taylor Swift release kind of thing: Oh, the book is dropping! Everyone needs to read it! I have watched so many books release that way, and it’s such a beautiful aspect of being a reader. But I just hope there’s an Indian voice like that soon, because we have a lot of really talented ones right now, who is able to cultivate that kind of a fandom.

MS: Exactly. As Paridhi said, I don’t think that sort of literary circuit of authors exists in India. They’re not necessarily divided into sects like they are globally or maybe in America in the way that there are some of the Richard Siken-s who are popular with a certain demographic. Then you have the very literary writers. Then you have, of course, people who are popular voices who you’ll find on, say, BookTok, et cetera. But in India, I don’t think that those sects exist. My sources are something like Penguin [Random House India]’s posts or the JCB list. So I know, oh, this author is there. But again, they have not differentiated themselves enough to lend their voice to a particular genre. This kind of scanning then becomes a very literary activity. My opinion could also be biased because I was an English literature student. We had to particularly read certain authors. But I still don’t think that there are authors that have made their marks in ways that would let them become a part of that terminally online population where they’re extremely revered. I think there are two-three – but not that many. 

PP: I’m also interested in hearing how TikTok being banned in India has contributed to that because in the past few years, I was reading, there are some book series that released decades earlier that are being blown up on TikTok. Those authors are becoming so prominent now. I have a feeling something similar would have happened in India, and some of these writers would have achieved that kind of global fame. 

MS: I have seen some TikToks about Indian books from BookTok. They’re glorifying Amish [Tripathi], and all their highlights focus on the warrior princess. They don’t understand that mythology here works very deeply with religion. They see them as “exotic” stories to read. That’s why I feel that because Amish, and self-help books like our Atomic Habits counterpart and the Robin Sharma books are so popular here, they would become popular on BookTok too and, therefore, may lead readers to read those over other authors. There is, of course, a chance that it be could be different.

PP: We do have Insta Poets like Megha Rao. Harnidh [Kaur] also used to write. There were also a lot of slam poets who used to perform. We don’t have somebody like Warsan Shire who was huge on Tumblr, if you remember. I do feel it’s a generational thing too. Right now, the poetry scene is completely different than what it used to be when we were teenagers in mid 2010s – so that’s also a thing. 

MS: Yeah, and I think Indian Insta Poets are riding on the glories of their pasts. There are very few left, actually; not because they don’t want to, but because there is not much space to do that anymore. I don’t think we have anything going on right now. I think there are a lot of writers who I see emerging, people writing about poetry and literature and whatnot. Like Insta Writers. 

AB: Yeah. The Insta Poet circuit has been replaced by the Insta Critic circuit. Everyone is a critic today. But I was thinking, and I feel like the only author that comes to my mind who straddles the line between these very prestigious literary circuits and the terminally online landscape is Arundhati Roy; and she’s been straddling that line for a very, very long time. But; so, I was still in university last year when Geetanjali Shree‘s Tomb of Sand (translated by Daisy Rockwell) really blew up. I didn’t really see conversations centring that online, however. But in the university space, every other person was referencing Tomb of Sand. Every other person wanted to write a thesis about Tomb of Sand — it was everywhere. I find that very interesting. That what is it about, you think, someone like Arundhati Roy, for instance, that allows her to straddle that line of being a part of these conversations online while also retaining that dignity required to belong in literary circles? 

MS: Not much to say, really. But two things. One, I think the university space, especially the university you were in or I was in, have people who come from a lot of privilege, and so, we have read these books. Our parents have encouraged us, we know the language these authors speak in, and therefore we’re able to interpret and write about it and discuss them with peers. But the larger population, including some within the terminally online people, do not have privilege vast enough to discuss big books like these. Secondly, I think Arundhati Roy sort of traversed these boundaries because regimes all over, men in particular, are just so critical of her work that it has become a part of the mainstream without wanting to, really. Conversations about it have stemmed more from hate than reverence. And of course, when you see hate, you actually pick up that piece of literature to see what it’s all about. And then, Arundhati Roy is also very popular in activist circles, especially with her participation during the CAA and NRC protests. Her trajectory, therefore, is also very different from Geetanjali Shree. I think there’s a lot of stuff that plays in the background, when it comes to India, whether it’s the politics of language or politics of religion or who is in power, that dominates what we see as pop culture or what we indulge in as pop culture. So that would be my take. 

PP: Yeah, I concur with this. I feel that Arundhati, in particular, has bridged that gap between an author and a public intellectual. She’s always been so politically active, and she has made headlines for that, and she is somebody who evokes really strong opinions from both sides of the political spectrum. Plus, she’s somebody whose books are generally good. I love The God of Small Things. I read it when I was 16, I think. She’s somebody who commands that respect. Of course, a lot of people have very polarising opinions about her, but as an author, she walks the talk. You can disagree with her on her opinions, but I feel that her body of work speaks for itself, and I think that’s why she has been relevant all these years too.

AB: Right. I feel that’s why Delhi Reads has also been a breath of fresh air because, I’m not sure if this has been a conscious choice but, you seem to stray away from a lot of works that are really big in the critical literary scene. You seem to be picking up works that are a little unconventional, on the sidelines, works that resonate with a lot of people but are not really already acclaimed as very prestigious. So has that been a conscious choice, or is it simply dictated by your personal tastes? 

PP: When we are deciding our Books of the Month, we give our readers, sorry, our community members, three options for a book. We try to ensure that all three of them are connected in a way. Not necessarily every time; but we try to stick to one theme every month, with choices varying across genres. For instance, a theme like coming-of-age, but with novels from genres like fantasy or sociopolitical non-fiction, etc. The poll speaks for itself sometimes. There have been moments when people have felt that, I wanted to read something, but everyone else decided upon something else. So it’s a completely collaborative effort, I would say, and the results speak. All the books we have discussed so far, they’ve been extremely diverse in terms of genres. 

MS: Yeah. And I think, there is somewhat of a conscious choice to not keep an 800 page novel because we know our demographic, right? We have working people, we have college students who have, at the end of the day, their core priorities, which is work and studying and whatnot. So we don’t necessarily keep books just because they are popular in the literary circuit or dense enough to be read. We don’t think that literature again, there is, as I said in Delhi also, when you talk among students, et cetera, they’re like, oh, you’ve not read XYZ author or their collected works. That sort of snobbery doesn’t work here. We’re like, you can read the back of a toothpaste cover, and we would still say, you’re a reader, right? So that doesn’t happen. But we are conscious of the length of it because we don’t want people just to turn up and be like, hey, I couldn’t read, or I can’t discuss, or I feel FOMO because it was too much on my plate. So that is there. But as Pari said, these are things that we come up with. Sometimes the author who’s coming dictates what we are reading because of course it’ll be their book. Sometimes we just keep a theme because maybe people just want it to be casual and open ended. So there’s a healthy mix of everything. 

AB: So what is next for Delhi Reads? You mentioned a collaboration with a really big chain is in the works. What else? What are your plans—if you can reveal anything? 

MS: One thing, speaking very honestly to you is that – I don’t know if it’s something generally on the rise, or we started a trend, but we’ve been seeing a lot of book clubs come up. Within the past three/four months, I just keep seeing book clubs everywhere. Maybe that’s my algorithm speaking because I run a book club. But again, it’s all over Twitter and Instagram right now. And there have been things that we have always wanted to do – not just because competition is coming up. We always wanted this to be more than just a one month setup because we also want to interact with it and have our community members enjoy a whole spectrum of things. So again, there are collaborations coming up with popular bookstores that we will tell you soon, things in the works with popular eateries and coffee chains, and conversations that are happening with popular authors. Also, ideas for collaborations floating between us and with other people who, how do I put this? The kind of people who encourage other kinds of interactions with other sorts of media or genres. With respect to a community, also just starting from level zero, we are also now starting to build Delhi Reads as a formal platform because, now that we have such a big member count, we really need the resources. If we could carry this on our backs monetarily, we would; but that’s not happening. People have been very kind. Organizations have been kind enough to host us — and a lot of effort goes into that on their part. But now we are formalizing the process because we don’t want it to just be a book club. We want the whole reader community, or communities everywhere, or people who interact with culture everywhere, to be a part of our community. That’s why we’re in the process of formalizing Delhi Reads as an organization, and also hosting things that are new and exciting. A point does come, for me, personally, when you’ve attended enough orthodox sessions like these that you begin to ask: What’s next? Because I am a person who just can’t sit with this every month, this routine of author, author, author. I just want to know what’s next. I keep looking for things that are unconventional, that have not been done before so that we can do that because I also want to be personally interested in the thing that I’ve started. Those are the couple of things that are coming up. Hopefully they will become real soon. 

PP: I think we have been very lucky that a lot of our partnerships have happened so organically—people have reached out to us themselves; and that’s such a good thing. We have been able to make a name for ourselves; especially because we are like—I just turned 22, Molly’s 21. We come from a background where we have no connections with anybody in this industry or anybody who could have told us to set up in this way. All of this has been our ideas. We have learned all of it through trial and error from ourselves. So I think it’s a great thing, it’s a great learning process. But, also, it should go beyond us, right? I think Delhi Reads and whatever comes, it should be sustainable in a way that it goes on even if we are not here to do something. I think that’s what I want: for it to grow beyond us too. So we are in the process of making it that way, if I can say so. 

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Anushka Bidani is a poet & essayist from India.