You can keep your Kindle. I don’t care how easy it makes things, I don’t care if it means you can travel lighter. I would rather make a bonfire of all the Kindles in the world before I gave up on used bookstores.
So, today’s column is not so much about books as it is about the charm of a second hand bookshop. I know a lot of people agree with me, but there are some people who prefer their books neatly catalogued, who go to a bookstore with a specific book in mind, probably the kind of people who buy the Kindle in the first place.
I have now been to second hand bookshops and book markets all over the world. This is not a coincidence. As soon as I get somewhere, I either check the guidebook or get a local person to tell me where I can go. They are a great way to keep an eye on the pulse of a city. What are people looking for? What are people getting rid of?
In Chandigarh, for instance, computer and engineering textbooks are everywhere, the same goes for Delhi’s Daryaganj Sunday book market. In Mumbai, pirated books sit cover to cover with romance novels, Mumbai likes to read, but they like fast-paced books that will entertain you from Churchgate to Virar and no longer. In Hyderabad, well, the last time I checked anyway, there were comics and childrens books everywhere, I guess products of some now grown-up kid who wasn’t sentimental about his or her childhood. Bengaluru is a mecca for second hand book lovers in this country, because of the awesome, awesome Blossom’s, where I spent three hours and emerged so overloaded that I had to pay extra baggage on my flight home.
Now, let’s look at this a little globally. While in India, people still prefer to go to new bookstores, simply for the choice and selection, in the West, antique and second hand bookstores are a bit of a fashion statement. You’ll find them in the hippest parts of London and Paris (and I have no doubt in New York and Tokyo as well). I just love the smell from so many old cloth and hardbound books, and I could sit there for hours just smelling and feeling and being. It’s the closest to prayer that I will ever get.
One of the nicest dates I ever had was when the boy in question whisked me off to a secret destination. We went through bylanes and main roads, and it was nowhere that I had imagined. “Where am I?” I asked and he smiled and said, “Wait” before leading me to the doors of the New And Secondhand Bookshop in Mumbai’s Marine Lines. He left me alone and I browsed for hours, and while we never did make it through the long run, I will always be grateful to him for that experience. Especially for not hurrying me along.
So, the next time you have a Sunday free, spend it like that. Take a walk to the book market, get some things you wouldn’t have dreamed of, be at one with books the way they are supposed to be. Free and organic and part of the larger picture.
The columnist is an author