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Arpita, Anay, Aavya, and Me completed our Himachal trip this summer on 3^rd June 2026. We drove from Chamba to Attari-Wagah Border Ceremony to Amritsar Airport.

The taxi driver wasn’t a very accommodative guy though. We completed the ceremony and had got 5 hours for our flight departure. We requested him to take us to the city so that we could enjoy some yummy Chole-Kulcha and Lassi. But he plainly refused. He said that it was on the other side of the town and he didn’t have the bandwidth to ride through the traffic. Unwillingly we got down at airport with our luggage!

Since the Amritsar airport was small, the check-in was super-fast, and within half an hour we were at the departure gate. The first thought was to relax in the airport lounge and take the flight. We swiped 5 cards, and surprise-surprise, none of the cards was eligible to give us an entry in the lounge. Reluctantly we moved away from the counter.

We had our food and were simply loitering around. In one corner, I saw a Yellow and Black board. The colour was such it drew my attention. As I walked near it, I couldn’t resist reading it. The title read – ‘FLYBRARY!’ a word I had not heard of, but sounded interesting. I decided to read further.

Flybrary was a concept started by Sujit Mahapatra, founder of Bakul Foundation, in partnership with Airports Authority of India. It debuted at Biju Patnaik International Airport in Bhubaneshwar in February 2025. It works on a very simple, but profound concept.

There will be dedicated spaces tucked away in the departure and arrival lounges of various participating airports. Any traveller can pick a book they would like to read. You have an option of carrying the book along the journey too. They allow you to drop of the book at any other participating airport too once you’re done reading. The idea was to reignite the joy of reading printed books.

The books are usually donated by organisations, individuals, companies, etc. Usually everyone has a small library at home. Invariably once we have read a book, it keeps gathering dust in our shelves. Instead, few people decided to donate those books to the Flybrary in their cities.

The best part is that there is no registration required for this. One can just go to the Flybrary corner, pick a book and get going. There is no need for sharing your mobile numbers, making a payment, or getting follow-up calls. It is purely a voluntary effort to read, contribute through giving your books, and returning the books back once you are done. There are no charges for availing these services.

Currently, Flybrary is already available at following airports – Bhubaneshwar, Pune, Srinagar, Silchar, Ghaziabad, Hubbali, Imphal, Chandigarh, Amritsar, Kishangarh, Mangaluru, Jammu, Agartala, Ranchi, and many more keep adding.

As I was talking to our family doctor today, he said something brilliant about the habit of reading. He said, “Like how we keep dumb-scrolling our smart phones on Instagram, facebook, etc., we should turn the pages of our books everyday. That will atleast help us grow and get into a beautiful habit,” He continued, “When one reads a book, you increase your attention span and focus. It’s not important what you read, but reading is important. Apart from what you learn (or not), that habit of cutting yourself off from everything and being engrossed will help in life!”

If you have any unused books, drop them off at the airport if they already have a Flybrary. You can also ship the books to organisations that are managing them. Incase you have more books, you will need to coordinate with the airport and find out where you can handover.

I would urge you to start using Flybrary as much as you can. Reading is a great habit, and has many more benefits than one. As a community, we need to re-ignite and re-kindle this habit of reading. This is one of the things we really need to pass on to the youngsters!