Entering a book store with hardly any particular book in mind, and being surrounded by shelves and shelves of books. Spending time thinking which book to buy or to buy anything at all, or suddenly coming across a book which I have been thinking of buying all these days but couldn't lay my hands upon. These are some of the unexpected thrills that attract me to a bookshop.
While in Mumbai I often used to visit those pavement book shops near the good old Central Telegraph Office on Veer Nariman Road (I am told they no longer exist) and spend hours squatting in the hot afternoon sun and rummage through the piles and piles of Harold Robbins, James Hadley Chase, Mills and Boon and not to mention the pornucopia penned by 'anonymous' writers, to find an Ernest Hemingway, a George Orwell or Somerset Maugham.
Quite often they used to be cheaper than the popular bestsellers. They were also old books with off-white pages and some even playing hosts to silver fishes.
Considering the modest demand I hardly ever came across any pirated xerox prints. I guess the booksellers used to feel relieved that finally, a taker has arrived' for a book that has been languishing with them for long.
I have spent many afternoons and evenings at these pavement book stores and one of the booksellers seemed to have taken note of my preferences. A couple of times as I was going through the drill of mining for my favorite book, he would hand over a well known classic and say 'Yeh sir aapke type ka kitaab hai'. In hindsight, I wish I had made efforts to know more about him, but his actions often used to leave me surprised and startled, as if someone was reading my mind.
Thanks to him I got a copy of Sylvia Plath's Bell Jar and quite a few other books. He seemed to know a thing or two about an Aldous Huxley, a Henry Miller or Sylvia Plath and other English writers.
Rest of them I doubt whether they could even read English (or angrezi as they would say). They were only concerned about the price listed on the back cover and were least bothered about what lay between the covers.
These second-hand books will often have names of previous owners scrawled on the front page. Some even had the date on which they were bought and some were given off as a gift for birthday. Some had both the previous owner's name and library seal. Probably some families may have donated them to a library for want of space or death of a bibliophile family member.
Interestingly, I happened to pick up a worn-out copy of Dog Years by noted German novelist Gunter Grass. It had the seal of Naval Officers Institute Dehra Dun and the date of procurement was mentioned as May 28, 1973. On the next page, somebody using a sketch pen had scrawled 'presented by INS Sutlej'.
In some books, I even came across the good old local train ticket (made of thick cardboard those days), which probably were used as bookmarks.
---
While in Chennai I once got the chance to visit the famous second-hand book shop on a pavement near Luz Church road run by one R.K. Alwar. There were piles of books housed under a tarpaulin cover. Alwar was present and since it was a hot afternoon he was wearing only a veshti and no shirt, and his flowing Tolstoy-type grey beard covered most of his torso.
His fame had traveled far and wide and his clientele included the intelligentsia of Chennai, ranging from Alladi Krishanswamy Aiyar to Cho Ramaswamy. It is said that when Chennai's municipal authorities tried to remove his shop there were public protests, something Mumbai ought to have done when booksellers from CTO were told to move. And when he died last December, city newspapers accorded him a rare privilege of running obituaries.
The obits had stated that he was not literate, but when I had gone there he spoke decent English and came across as someone who eats, drinks and sleeps books. When I saw a copy of the Discovery of India and made a weak attempt to haggle about the price he said, "This is a classic written by Jawaharlal Nehru, I cannot give at a lower price."
At that point, I missed those booksellers in Mumbai who had little idea of what lay between the covers of what they were selling, and hence open to some bargaining.
---
Second-hand booksellers in Bangalore are a more empowered lot and thriving. Though there are places Avenue Road where they sell on the pavements, the two famous sellers Blossoms and Bookworm, which trace their origins from pavements, have now become gentrified.
They are located on the prime Church Street and housed in proper shops running into more than square 5,000 feet, with modern-day payment trappings such as credit card swiping machines and mobile wallet facility thrown in.
These two book stores have in fact bucked the worldwide trend of brick and mortar book stores closing down across the globe due to falling readership and onslaught of e-commerce companies. They, in fact, moved to bigger premises to cater to their patrons.
The rows of metal shelves at Blossoms may remind you of government offices. The books arranged on them burst at the seams. Bookworm too had that old world crammed look when it was housed in an outlet on the Shringar Complex on MG Road. But now after moving to Church Street it has acquired a high-street supermarket look.
Also Read: Bangalore Short Takes
---
While in Chennai I once got the chance to visit the famous second-hand book shop on a pavement near Luz Church road run by one R.K. Alwar. There were piles of books housed under a tarpaulin cover. Alwar was present and since it was a hot afternoon he was wearing only a veshti and no shirt, and his flowing Tolstoy-type grey beard covered most of his torso.
His fame had traveled far and wide and his clientele included the intelligentsia of Chennai, ranging from Alladi Krishanswamy Aiyar to Cho Ramaswamy. It is said that when Chennai's municipal authorities tried to remove his shop there were public protests, something Mumbai ought to have done when booksellers from CTO were told to move. And when he died last December, city newspapers accorded him a rare privilege of running obituaries.
The obits had stated that he was not literate, but when I had gone there he spoke decent English and came across as someone who eats, drinks and sleeps books. When I saw a copy of the Discovery of India and made a weak attempt to haggle about the price he said, "This is a classic written by Jawaharlal Nehru, I cannot give at a lower price."
At that point, I missed those booksellers in Mumbai who had little idea of what lay between the covers of what they were selling, and hence open to some bargaining.
---
Second-hand booksellers in Bangalore are a more empowered lot and thriving. Though there are places Avenue Road where they sell on the pavements, the two famous sellers Blossoms and Bookworm, which trace their origins from pavements, have now become gentrified.
They are located on the prime Church Street and housed in proper shops running into more than square 5,000 feet, with modern-day payment trappings such as credit card swiping machines and mobile wallet facility thrown in.
These two book stores have in fact bucked the worldwide trend of brick and mortar book stores closing down across the globe due to falling readership and onslaught of e-commerce companies. They, in fact, moved to bigger premises to cater to their patrons.
The rows of metal shelves at Blossoms may remind you of government offices. The books arranged on them burst at the seams. Bookworm too had that old world crammed look when it was housed in an outlet on the Shringar Complex on MG Road. But now after moving to Church Street it has acquired a high-street supermarket look.
Also Read: Bangalore Short Takes
