The story of Hanuman Jagriti Club (HJC), Madhubani, Bihar / Vijay Kumar

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Sweet memories of past persists

Hanuman Jagriti Club (HJC): HJC was founded in 1998 in the form of Library at Hanuman Bag Colony, Madhubani. Primarily it was founded to meet the need of competitive books at the single integrated platform and later it was expanded to a full-fledged library having variety of novels, weekly/monthly Subscription of competitive books. In those days, computer study material was in abundance and the regularly conducted quiz events and debates among the members of this knowledge centre were quite frequent.

The very early idea behind the formation of this library was to get all the registered members leveraged of every possible study material made available to  them so that all should have an equal opportunity to read the same in a rotation manner. This would help everyone manage everything economically. A relevant fact worthy to mention here is that at some point of time between 1960-1970 a library on somewhat similar to this was also running in the anteroom of the abode of Radha Ballabh Das of vill. Kamalpur (Madhubani). The same remained operative for approx. ten years. Saraswati Puja, Vocal-instrumental recital of music were conducted with full fanfare.

A monthly meeting is conducted by all the patrons of the library to keep track of the progress and need arisen if any. It was decided to have this meeting on monthly basis and create a fund as and when needed. All of them began to donate periodically either in cash or by books.

A studious boy named Anand with a couple of similar friends had once took to studying at the Hanuman temple which is centrally located in the colony. This act of his was noticed by his father named A C Das who was a bank officer who began to think how to help Anand and the other similar students in studying without any hindrance. In the meanwhile, this Library titled as Hanuman Jagriti Club was established on 16th April 1998. In fact, the library was formally conceptualised by Saurabh Thakur,  Rakesh Ranjan,  Anand and Raghavendra for reading monthly magazine and other books by sharing,  and later it was decided that it should be extended to a larger scale. But, this is also a truth beyond an iota of doubt that this library could not have reached such a grandeur if the great visionary Late A. C. Das had not come forward to the rescue of book-lover children. He allowed two of his rooms for the library.

As the days passed on, it evolved itself to a higher scale and people from almost every corner of the city got to know about such a great initiative and came up to join this library given a membership charge of just 10/- per month.

Later on, this library became the pride of the city where majority of members used to get selected in public sector services and clear the competitive entrance exams for the higher education.

The extra-curriculum events were added on to promote the juniors and instill a vein of creativity namely Rangoli/Mehandi decoration, cultural and musical events etc. That’s when the need of Sraswati Puja was felt by the library members and resolution was passed in this respect in a meeting on 26/01/1998 followed by the performance of Saraswati Pooja in the next week. Since then, Saraswati Pooja along with all events as explained were started under the banner of HJC. The first President Mr. Raghavendra Kumar ‘Rahi’ took over the entire responsibility of this library for a year followed by Anand Kumar Ranjan for the subsequent year.

Bhaleshwari Niwas extended the support of sparing the space for the library for over 10 years free of cost.

Now, at a later juncture of time when most of the members left the city, a vital question loomed large as to who should run the library? So, slowly this library limited itself to getting opened only on  weekends. Though, a dedicated team still decided to continue the Saraswati Pooja celebration along with all the regular events that had been run so far. These activities have subsisted till date as all the ex-members (usually called senior members) who have joined some respectable jobs and services do extend the moral and financial support with their  nostalgic fervor full of past sweet memories, no matter where does they staying to be...

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Script by - Vijay Kumar

Photographs by - Vijay Kumar

E-mail for response-: hemantdas_2001@yahoo.com