I was with Al, 72, a retired professor of a university near Chicago. He and I served in the editorial board of a special issue of a journal.
As he dipped into his koraishutir kochuri into cholar dal at the café at crafts museum near purana qilla in Delhi, with a fiery whole red chilli, said matter-of-factly, ‘When it comes to books, my condo has floor to roof shelves, and there is no space to keep any more. And that will never stop me from buying another’. He giggled and paid attention to the mishti doi cheesecake.
‘Then you have to go to College Street in Kolkata!’
‘Not been there, but I do have a full day tomorrow to explore Khan Market, and Bahrisons is on my list’
‘It has moved from first row to second floor on the second row. And Full Circle Book Store and Café Turtle at Khan Market-that closed’
‘What!’
‘A part of me was lost. My memories of taking my daughter, my niece, my friends, strangers I met in my travels and took there, and those desolate foggy winter mornings that felt warm with their hot apple cider drink and ginger chocolate tart-wiped out’
He smiled and said, ‘It’s never the same. New and old. I love this book The French Lieutenant’s Woman. I went to the used book section and bought the only copy left. Someone made copious notes on its pages. I could feel how the mind of this student worked. I would never know who it is. But I was connected now to this person. Why did it close-Full Circle?’
‘Possibly drop in footfalls post-pandemic. Did you see the documentary “Hello, Bookstore”?’
‘No, what is it about?’
‘See it, Al! It’s about how they saved the store in spite of the hit of the lockdown’
‘I always buy books from a conglomerate of independent bookstores’
‘Do you? I wish there was something like that here in India. We can’t let the Amazons of the world eat up the independent bookstores. While the movie You’ve got Mail was great-I hated that the neighbourhood store closed down with big box retail. Come to think about it only Notting Hill and Hugh Grant-kind of characters are permitted to live in this world. Period’
‘What about Hugh Grant?’
‘He is that person who knew all about the books he sold. He read. He is the person I’d buy from. It’s his stories, his customers, the people he touched. That is what we thrive in-don’t we?’
‘That reminds me I have to get some books for my grandnephew and grandniece’
‘Let me take you to just the right place. The bookstore is not what it was in Khan Market, but they have shifted the café to Nizamuddin-and I did spy some children’s books there’
As I sipped my hot apple cider drink at the café, Al got Ganesha’s Sweet Tooth from the shelf and I pulled out the little soul-book from my jhola A Field Guide to Getting Lost . . . there is always a full circle-from loss, losing and being lost to finding your yellow brick road, one step at a time.
I made a mental note that I will ask my students-how can they save independent book stores with their marketing toolkit. Hugh Grant-s have to be saved!
Glossary:
koraishutir kochuri – an indian savoury with green peas
chholar dal – lentil dish
purana qilla – old fort
mishti doi – sweet curd
jhola – an indian carry-all bag
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