Suryapet: Usually, salaried people look to holidays for spending time with families or recreation. But, this government teacher uses his holidays visiting shops to collect old books for his library.
Sheela Avilenu’s addiction to collecting books made him to develop a library in his house at Suryapet. He has nearly 50,000 books in his library.
Avilenu, a Telugu pandit at a Zilla Parishad High School of D. Kothapally, spends a fifth of his salary to purchase books. He has been doing this since 1999 when he got his first job.
Of 50,000 books collected by him, 40,000 are in Telugu while the rest are in English and Hindi and about a 100 in Kannada, Marathi and Urdu.
That apart, one can find rare books that are long out of print in his library.
The first Telugu detective novel ‘Nene’ written by Devaraju Venkata Krishna Rao and published in 1924 and a book on Yakshaganam, ‘Gandlakandam’ published in 1932, are among his rare collections.
Speaking to Deccan Chronicle, Avilenu said he got rare books from scarp shops. He spends his holidays on collection of books. People sell old books after reading them to scarp dealers.
Avilenu said he forgets tiredness when he finds a good book from a scrap store.
He said his library is open from 6 am to 8 am and from 6 pm to 9 pm on all working days and from 8 am to 5 pm on holidays. Students and research scholars from Osamina and Kakateeya College visit his library for reference books, he added.
