The Broke Bibliophiles book club is set to turn 10 years old and has no plans of slowing down, stubbornly staying relevant in a world of AI and online forums
The gatherings of Broke Bibliophiles are dedicated to provide a space between authors and readers at no cost whatsoever
For a book club known for being free to its members, a decade is a curious kind of endurance test. Trends shift, attention spans contract, algorithmic feeds gobble our hours, and yet, somewhere in Mumbai, a roomful of strangers continues to gather every month simply to talk about books. That stubborn insistence on reading together is what has kept the Broke Bibliophiles alive for 10 years with more than 1400 members active on its Whatsapp group. As it approaches its 10th anniversary in April 2026, its co-founder, Nirav Mehta, finds himself looking back with pride after spending a decade incorporating his blood and sweat into it.
Mehta remembers the beginning with a sort of affectionate irony. “I started it with a team of 11 people. We declared ourselves co-founders,” he says. “Soon I was the only one actually running the book club constantly.” The club’s original dream was delightfully analogue — meet in person, talk in person, and build a reading community in the real world.
“We’re surviving in our independently curated ways,” he says. That survival has taken the shape of monthly meetups — no genres off-limit. The only real constant has been consistency, which he insists is the main reason the club is still standing. “A lot of newspapers and community members started noticing the consistency of us doing it,” he says. “That’s the only key that kept us alive through the years.”
Like every community built around physical presence, the club weathered its toughest storm during the pandemic. The meetings moved online. Things were improvised “spontaneously”, as Mehta puts it. “I set up a base for the book club,” he says, “for it to be a voice to a lot of authors and publishing houses for reach and crowd.”
Nirav Mehta
That voice has grown. Authors and publishers now know the group well enough to approach them directly. Over time, the club has become an informal pipeline for authors with new books, publishers with events, readers hunting for recommendations, all converging in this volunteer-run ecosystem. “All our meetups are free,” Mehta says. “Unless it’s at a café where we take a cover charge. Everything is voluntary. There’s no membership fee. The whole idea is to meet real readers and build that engagement between readers and authors. I am just a medium.”
Tejasvi Khatry who has been part of the book club since almost its inception says, “It’s beautiful. There is a sense of community because people come together simply for the love of stories and words. The connection is strong.” From attending multiple book launches and meet-ups Khatry, now 30, even found a bit of an employment. “I always had a love for stories but no clue on how to make friends. Coming to a Broke meet was amazing because you’re not expected to follow a theme, or have to read a book. You just have to show up and talk about books and anthologies. I found multiple friends, met lovely authors and read books I wouldn’t have on my own.”
Many are young discovering the intoxicating intimacy of a room where everyone is there for the same reason. “I do see a lot of young people joining,” Mehta says. The club’s outreach and community-led approach help: members chip in, volunteer, help set up events, spread the word. It’s a little ecosystem held together by goodwill and a common desire to talk about books in real life.
He is animated when talking about what comes next. “I’m planning something big for April,” he says, voice rising with the excitement of someone holding a secret. “I haven’t signed it yet, but it’s a surprise for my members.”
Ten years in, he has no plans to slow down. “I want to keep the club going for as long as possible.” It’s rare for a community built on volunteer energy to last this long. Rarer still for it to feel this alive. But perhaps the magic is in a city full of strangers, a stack of books, and one person who refused to let the pages fade away.
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