For three years now, I’ve been regularly visiting a special corner of the Internet — the digital library of former Attorney General K.K. Venugopal. In March 2020, Venugopal decided to digitise and upload his extensive collection of antiquarian books — a process that took, for the first lot of nearly 1,200 books, half a year. Today, the collection has almost 1,900 books, and waiting in the wings are thousands more.
Venugopal began collecting books in 1970, starting with a title on the erstwhile South Indian Railway Company. He hasn’t stopped, and when I visit him, he shows me a new auction catalogue he has his eyes on. The books on the website, www.kkvlibrary.com, are copyright free and can be downloaded, too. The oldest in the collection is a travelogue: Travels In Hindustan: The History Of The Late Revolution Of The Dominions Of The Great Mogol by Francois Bernier, dating back to 1676. In fact, historical travelogues are one of the biggest segments in Venugopal’s library — accounts of visitors to the country, mostly men, but also a few women — who turned their lens on India.
