In large parts of rural India, education is still a distant dream. In most places, even if children go to school, education barely goes beyond the prescribed.
On January 4, in Puin village in Hooghly district, a Kolkata-based couple opened the doors to something that attempts to close that gap — a library that doubles up as a classroom, a cultural centre and a shared space for learning across generations.
By late afternoon each day now, between 3pm and 5pm, farmers, homemakers, school students and elderly residents file in, some for books, some for language lessons.
The library-classroom, Lokkatha, founded by psychotherapist Shantanu Ghosh and Bethune College professor Anindita Datta, already counts 251 members and sees 30-40 daily visitors.
The Rs 40-lakh initiative has been funded entirely through the couple’s savings.
Conceived in 2007 and materially initiated in 2019, Lokkatha grew out of a shared sense that despite having established themselves professionally in Kolkata, both had unfinished work elsewhere.
Datta grew up in Arambagh in Hooghly district. Ghosh was born and brought up in Ichapur in the North 24 Parganas.
Datta says they both knew what rural deprivation looked like.
“Our hearts always went out to the people here because we were brought up in similar settings,” Datta tells My Kolkata. “We know what rural people are deprived of. Not intelligence, but exposure.”
So, exposure is what Lokkatha attempts to organise.
The centre offers access to literature, cinema, religion and science, and also language classes in vernacular mediums, Hindi, Bengali, English and Spanish — with plans to introduce more modern foreign languages in the future.
Datta says the intent was never to produce urban replicas.
“Knowledge does not have an urban viewpoint”, she tells My Kolkata.
The aim, Datta says, is to let villagers develop knowledge through their own cultural perspective rather than importing it.
The centre has also hosted free eye-checkup camps and community film screenings, the first of which featured Charlie Chaplin’s The Kid.
For many children in Puin, it was the first time watching a film on a screen.
Villagers have helped prepare the space, spread the word, and encouraged attendance even when financial contributions were not possible.
Fees are taken — Rs 20-50 for language courses, and Rs 20 other courses.
“We didn’t want this to be a charity,” Datta says. “We wanted it to function as a shared cultural centre.”
