Secret Letter #5: The Power of Silence
How Cubbon Reads' ethos of silence has helped build an ever-growing community of readers
Dearest Reader,
Tell us if we sound presumptuous but we believe Cubbon Reads works for most of us because of its mandated silence. The mandated silence takes away the anxiety of socialisation and prevents the needless intellectualisation that we have so far associated with book clubs. It has allowed 500+ readers to sit and read together, scattered like dishes on a thali, without the park turning into a fish market.
After two to three hours of silent reading, when we meet and converse with fellow readers at book stacking, we are already feeling good with ourselves—having started our Saturdays on a good note. The conversation that follows doesn’t come from a place of loneliness but curiosity, which makes Cubbon Reads (and all our reads chapters that religiously follow the ethos of mandated silence) a safe space. This intentful small talk, borne out of interest for the book they were reading more than the person, has the potential to turn into a long talk over a long walk to a lunching place. This organic interaction has turned a lot of our regulars into friends.
The silence, the respect for free-will (come anytime, leave anytime) and no data collection makes people feel respected of their privacy and freedom, turning them into our regulars. It didn’t surprise us when slowly, kids and grandparents started coming for silent reading, united thanks to the mandated silence despite the liguistic, genre and age difference. Cubbon Paints burgeoned from within Cubbon Reads and Cubbon Folds, Writes and Knits followed. Silence became the thread running through them all.
Not A Book Club
Reading is a solitary activity. Even when you’re in a group, you read alone. When we started Cubbon Reads, we were very clear on one aspect: we don’t want a community that discusses and dissects books. We wanted a community which simply congregates to read together. Like two runners coming together to run together, we missed a community that simply reads together. We believe we read with our own experiences percolating in a book, and a discussion right away steals the assimilation of the book with our experience of reading them. Every book has its own hangover, and an immediate discussion often kills that hangover before it could lead to its actualisation. The takeaway from a book is often whitewashed by the takeaway of someone more articulate, more opinionated in book clubs.
When we call a community a book club, the book aspect of it takes the centerstage. In our case, we wanted a community centred around reading, which is why the word Reads, not books, in our name and all our chapters. We don’t care what you’re reading as long as you’re reading. Over the years, we have seen readers bring research papers, newspapers, magazines, letters and even shampoo bottles to read its ingredients. This opens the playing field (or should we say, the reading field?) and immediately makes everyone feel welcome and free. Freedom is paramount for us as a community, and this is why, even for book stacking, while we invite every reader we find, we always tell them it’s optional. One can skip the book stacking and continue to read. Everything is optional at Cubbon Reads, even attending it, barring just one thing: silence.
Silence is what binds us, silence is what is our appeal, and if you’re a reader reading this newsletter, you know why. It’s silence that turns reading into travel, making it the great escape. It allows your imagination to wander, without being woken up from the trance that an author creates with their words. Reading is the most intimate form of listening, and any nearby banter can break your reverie. For us, disturbing an engrossed reader is sacrilege. Two hands cupping a book is no less than a prayer.
Reading in Public Space
A public space such as a park apart from being inexpensive, inclusive and open to everyone without discrimination offers one great thing: the attention of citizens from all strata of society. Reading in a public space is important to us because it’s the best way to fulfill our mission: to make reading more visible, more widespread, normalising people carrying books outdoors–in parks, in metros, in cafes. How else do you rub reading on the wider population?
It comes from our own experience. When one of our curators was in Paris in 2013 for studies, they saw one out of every three passengers reading a book in the metro. The very next day, our curator started carrying books with them, finishing a dozen of those in the course of their six month of stay. Seeing people reading is the quietest yet the most telling reminder for one to read. It won’t be farfetched to say that reading is communicable and we wish for everyone to be afflicted by this beautiful disease.
A Note to the Chapters
When we see some of our chapters do collaborations with non-silent activities such as music or inviting speakers to talk to the readers, we feel they’re missing the point.
The moment you make a silent reading community non-silent, you stall its true potential. You shut the door to the introverts, when most readers are introverts. It might be a fun thing to do, but it dilutes the reading movement, and such chapters become a clique of 30-40 regular readers, huddled around the curators, which makes it difficult for a new reader to feel welcome. This is precisely why we as curators never sit huddled with a group, we don’t have a Whatsapp group, and we make sure we sit and read in our own little island of a mat, so it doesn’t intimidate a new reader visiting the park to come talk to us.
A Note to New Communities
Every other day, we receive messages from folks who wish to start a new community in Cubbon during the reading hours for a shout-out. Some for singing, some for quizzing. We tell them we only give a shout-out to communities which are silent in nature, as it won’t disturb the hundreds of people reading with us. Such sacrosanct is silence to us that when our curators started a one-on-one book community called Cubbon Meets, they never gave it a shout-out from Cubbon Reads. Cubbon Meets grew on its own to its 1000+ followers, purely by word of mouth.
If you’re starting a community during the reading hours where talking is inevitable, all we request you is to do it in a part of the park away from the readers.
Why Silence?
Philosophically, it’s nothing but the silence that has made Cubbon Reads a truly democratic space. When you mandate silence, the most beautiful outcome of that is the park becomes a non-performative space. Without performance, everyone is equal. There’s no differentiation between a performer and an audience. The dilution of silence is a major blow to democracy of the community, as every talker becomes a performer and hogs the spotlight, at least for once, and it does disservice to others who might not want to speak up.
This is precisely why we say a blanket no to all the authors and publishers willing to do book launches with Cubbon Reads. For us, no author is bigger than a reader and they’re welcome to join as readers instead. In fact, so many of Bengaluru authors have quietly come to read with us, without hogging space, without promoting their books, and it only tells how ardently Bengaluru understands and values silence.
In a city that’s riddled with noise—right from the sputter of engines and harsh honks in the traffic to the loud music blaring in cafés to the stress of workplace ire, parks becomes the embodiment of mellow natural sounds. Birds chirping becomes the constant hum, as we partake the clean air, the birdsongs subconsciously make us feel safe and relaxed—a welcome break from the weeklong hustle. As a matter of fact, birdsongs and relaxation are linked to our evolution. Birds stop singing when there are dangerous predators around. Over thousands of years, this connection with safety has made people feel calm and at peace when they hear a birdsong.
All in all, we have just one line to close this letter with: let there be words (in print) and let there be birds (in sync). :)
Affectionately,
Cubbon Reads
Hell yeah! The pressure to socialise, and to read aiming to intellectually dissect a book can be prohibitive to a lot of readers. I Don't want to socialise in the mornings. I also only want to read for the enjoyment of it a lot of times... And Cubbon Park is perfect... Fresh air, trees / grass... And that sense of solidarity... The weekends I make it there, I love it...