Wherever there are books, there is a Khumbamattu. This quintessential view of the family spreads over multiple generations & geographies. Over the years the family has grown wide & diverse; with the current Khumbamattu family being an assimilation and reflection of many other families like the Gades, Sharmas ,Shuklas & Ravals. The families come from all parts of the India with varied cultural influences & differences, but one common interest that ties across all of them is the love for books & reading.
The Khumbamattu family has many folklores running back into generations about this love, some dating back even a century! In the late 1890s when our great great grand mother would bribe her children to buy pakodas so that she could read newspaper it would come wrapped in! During the partition when one of the families had to migrate from Pakistan to India overnight, only two things were protected and transported – books & babies. Even in the crammed local trains of Mumbai, this love for books was a companion to one of the Grandfathers, who filled his room with cupboards of books. In the early 60’s our parents and their siblings donated their books to the village schools whenever they could. The current generation has instituted scholarships, shared knowledge across the breadth of the country free of cost, facilitated building careers through life skill programs etc. The future generation- our children, continue to carry forward the legacy by conducting reading sessions at their schools, sharing their books with others post reading, positing blogs on what to read and why, and so on. The very fact that 5 generations later even a new-born’s nursery is designed with a reading nook, promises another century of book loving Khumbamttus…
Over the years the yearning to structure this urge of positive change through books has resulted in establishment of this foundation – Food4Thought Foundation. We fundamentally believe that the purpose of a book is to keep travelling and feed millions of hungry minds, bring joy to million hearts and to lighten a million souls. We are proud that what began as an initiative of a family has become a movement of passionate book lovers. Hundreds have joined us, in various forms making contributions all through.
As a larger Food4Thought Family we commit to continue to work tirelessly to help achieve this dream of ‘Connecting Idle Books to Hungry Minds’ and fulfilling every book lover wish & request – Just one more page please….