# @kanchan_balani on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DYtYPnDEl6q
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/66037784-kanchan-balani-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/38e97f7be9.jpg
- **Posted:** 2026-05-24T05:05:49.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Kanchan (@kanchan_balani) — https://gondola.cc/kanchan_balani

## Caption

I’ve been a reader my whole life. Books have brought me immense solace and fulfillment in some of my roughest times. But being at liberty to read whatever you want, whenever you want, is not something everyone is born into.

The Community Library Project (TCLP) exists to dismantle that inequity. Working tirelessly in the poor neighbourhoods of Delhi, TCLP has free libraries, ensuring that thousands of people have access to books, to reading, to thinking. Especially communities who have been excluded from it. After all, authoritarianism requires obedience, and obedience becomes very difficult when people have heads full of ideas. 

Yesterday, Hansal and I did a read-aloud of When Golu Goes Missing at one of TCLP’s libraries in South Ex (as a part of their Summer in the Library programme). By the end of the session, Hansal and I couldn’t stop smiling and talking about what each kid in the session had to say. They wanted to know why Golu was acting the way he was. Their questions and guesses made us think about things. And then, in the letter-writing activity we did with them, they wrote some of the most sweetest, unguarded things to their close ones. 

If TCLP’s work moves you, please consider supporting them (link in bio). In these inclusive spaces anyone can read, learn, and engage with the world through the written word. And in these times, we need that more than ever.

## Stats

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- **Likes:** 184
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## Credits

| Name | Username | Profile | Role |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Kanchan | @kanchan_balani | https://gondola.cc/kanchan_balani | Consultant |

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