A Bookish Affair

Pradeep Sebastian on why he prefers the slow, enticing search for a book in a local store to the instant delivery in the chain bookstores.

The little local bookstore around the corner that we took for granted is shutting down in nearly every Indian city. As chain superstores gain momentum in our metros, the cozy bookstore, where browsing was a personal experience, is vanishing. A few loyal customers still patronise them; other readers have been seduced by discounts, DVDs, CDs and stationary that have now become a part of our browsing experience in these chain bookstores. I don't want to sound alarmist about independent bookstores turning invisible, but in the struggle between independent versus chain bookstores, the local bookstore either loses or is always hit the hardest. If this were not so, the ardent browser would not take sides.

I am not being merely nostalgic or sentimental — the battle between the literary bookstore and the superstore has already been fought in Britain and North America, and there are no guesses for who won. Most of the old bookstores in London's famed Charing Cross Road have moved or gone. Some have even been turned into pizzerias. All those legendary bookstores in New York shut down over the last decade. Gotham Book Mart, Mystery Inc. (a store devoted only to detective fiction) and Endicott Books were all once literary landmarks in Manhattan that don't exist anymore.

Closer home, the future of Bangalore's Premier bookshop is uncertain. The books shelved deep inside Giggles, Chennai, are being eaten up by silverfish. The New and Secondhand Bookshop in Mumbai is certainly not what it used to be. My bibliophile friends in Pune, Delhi and Hyderabad tell me the same thing about long standing bookstores there. Which is why I was happy to see Kolkata's Seagull Bookstore continue to advertise itself as: "Independent. Fiercely so. Constantly battling the Lords of Stationery and the Coffee machines." Lotus Bookshop, Mumbai, was probably the best literary bookstore in the country, but even this highly patronised bookshop closed its doors a few years ago.

I will readily admit that the superstore has features that should belong to the personal bookstore but doesn't: wide browsing space, deep sofas to sprawl in, a children's section, and a large (if not varied) stock. I don't know about you, but I rather like not finding a book I am looking for right away. In these well-stocked superstores they produce the book in front of your face even before you have completed the title, but in the small bookstore the satisfaction is in browsing for it. I am interested in the chase. My longing for a book increases when I can't get it at once. Few things can match the intense anticipation of returning the next day, or a week later, to buy it. All the way to the bookstore you are wondering if it's gone or if it's still there. If the book has been bought, then there's the excitement of the hunt. Where else can you find it, and how soon?

Our most beloved image of a bookstore is still a place that is suffused with an intimate, literary atmosphere where the owner and her assistants know you, and can even point you to the right books because they know what you read. And then there's the simple joy of running into other interesting browsers, some of whom you know personally. What is different about chatting about books here is the pleasure of being able to pick out books you have read and recommend them to fellow browsers or have books thrust at you by them with the same intention. It's also a sensuous thing, this touching and fondling and smelling of books. I can't resist smelling old books — especially comics — in old bookstores. It makes you nostalgic for childhood and gives you back the memory of your earliest encounter with books: the feel and smell of paper, the taste of words and sentences.

But is it realistic to expect independent bookstores to stay open and fight for their business? Because the emergence of the chain bookstore is only one factor in independents losing business: several of our legendary local bookstores across the country had central locations, and the steep increase in rent (or lease) either forced them to relocate to the suburbs, or compelled them to close down entirely. If the bookish bookstore has to sustain itself, it has to consider a makeover. One good direction would be is to make part of the store a used or secondhand section, or be a bookstore that is very specialised, focusing on, say, just genre writing — graphic novels, science fiction/fantasy and mysteries. An exclusive children's bookstore, perhaps or a very literary, highbrow bookstore. That should bring in old customers, win new ones and fulfill a niche market.

At the very least the little local bookstore can act as a community bookstore: where readers can meet as a community to talk literature, politics, and ideas. The superstore, as convenient as it is, can't — and shouldn't — take the place of the old, musty smelling bookstore. What will go if our local bookstores entirely vanish is an entire way of browsing; an entire way of being a certain kind of reader and booklover.