Mumbai’s daily commute just got a little more interesting.
Cityflo and Project Mumbai have launched “Turning Pages”, a pilot that turns select Cityflo buses into mini moving libraries. Commuters can pick up a book, read during their journey, return it for another passenger, or donate one of their own. The collection includes fiction, biographies, business, self-development and contemporary Indian writing.
The idea comes from Shishir Joshi, CEO and founder of Project Mumbai, whose organisation is already working to make reading more accessible through its Read Mumbai movement. For Joshi, the bus library is another way of taking books to people instead of waiting for people to find their way to a library.
Why put books on buses?
Because asking busy people to find time to read may be harder than giving them something meaningful to do with the time they already have.
Cityflo’s Sankalp Kelshikar, CMO and Co-founder described the commute as one of the few stretches of the day that belongs entirely to the commuter. Turning Pages tries to reclaim that time from screens and make reading part of an existing routine rather than another task to fit into a crowded day.
Mumbaikars already spend hours commuting. Instead of filling that time with endless scrolling, Turning Pages gives them another option—a few pages, a new story and perhaps the beginning of a reading habit.
What makes it even better is that the books come from citizens themselves. Read a book, pass it on, add one to the shelf. A library that moves with the city.
