Readers and members visiting a prestigious library in San Francisco, USA, will know something about the past history and culture of Mysore with the addition of the book, “Mysuru Memories — The Old City of Mysuru,” to its collection.

The book, authored by Gouri Satya, a senior journalist and a regular columnist of Star of Mysore, is now added to the collections of the Cupertino Public Library, which serves nine cities including Cupertino. The other eight cities covered by it are Gilroy, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Milpitas, Morgan Hill and Saratoga, and all unincorporated areas of Santa Clara County in the Silicon Valley of the US.

Besides the members of the Cupertino Public Library, members in other eight cities can also access the book from the Cupertino Library for reading or reference from their County Libraries.

It is the first book about the history and heritage of Mysuru in English available for NRIs and US citizens in this Library to know something about the past of Mysuru, the erstwhile royal city.

A host for several global IT companies, Silicon Valley has a large number of NRIs. They include a big number of Kannadigas, who love their language and their mother-land and miss books about Mysuru. There are also Americans equally keen to know about the glory of Karnataka, in particular Mysuru, because of the role of the Maharajas in making their capital a model city. As the book is in English, even those who have lost touch in reading Kannada can now know the contribution made by the Wadiyars and the cultural past of Mysuru and feel proud about it.

Incidentally, the Cupertino Library has a small section of Kannada books. It follows a set of regulations for adding any book to its collection. Besides details about the book, including its content, the book should have a credible review and media coverage. In this case, the review of “Mysuru Memories” written by well-known columnist Dr. Javeed Nayeem in SOM soon after the release of the book in 2016 was of great help in getting the book included in its collection.

In addition to this, the book was reviewed in the local (Sunnyvale) Kannada audio channel, Kithaak, recently. Thanks to the efforts of its promoter, Vinay Bhardwaj, the audio channel has become very popular among the Kannadigas in Sunnyvale area. Its programmes include a book review every week and this time it was “Mysuru Memories.” This 15-minute review in the channel by Sindhu Gowri has generated keen interest on the history and heritage of Mysuru as this is the first time a chronicle on the past glory of Mysuru was reviewed in the channel. Over 200 local Kannadigas have posted their appreciative comments and also ‘likes’ in the Facebook post after listening to the comprehensive review, besides sharing it. A big section of them have expressed surprise that Mysuru has so much to offer in terms of history, culture and heritage.

Overall, both the availability of the book for reading, and its review have generated tremendous interest about Mysuru among the people in this area of the US giving a big boost to the image of Mysuru in the Silicon Valley, the US capital of IT companies.

The author of the book says, he is happy that his effort to take Mysuru to the local Kannadigas and others has borne fruit and his visit to the US is a great success.  

Here are the links for those interested to listen to the audio interview: Click Here #kittaak  #loveformysore #historian