IN THE EVENING, once the heat begins to ebb, Mazhar-e-Alam shuffles up the stairs to his shop, asks his neighbour to raise the metal shutter, and settles down for business under a hanging bulb. Perched above a bicycle repair shop in the old Nakhas neighbourhood of Lucknow, across from the decrepit Prakash Talkies and next to a dealer in used plastic barrels, the Mazhar-e-Alam Library is one of the
