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A new level for kids
Book-crazy Kolkata got a new watering hole for books when the Landmark store inaugurated a new level for kids. Benita Sen reports on the response.
Debunkers of reading would do a double take. Even as the city gears up for the next Kolkata Book Fair with designs and plans for the various stalls that witness a record number of readers each year, a new chapter opened in Kolkata's reading history.
At Landmark, one of this book-crazy city's largest reading stores in terms of space - a huge 20,000 sq ft - selection and sales, events turned to a new chapter. On November 22, 2003 Jyoti Basu, political pater of the state for over a generation, inaugurated a whole new level for children. This was one of his rare "social" dekkos. Quite appropriately, Basu, who has never been too visible with his family, brought his young grandson along. And after the honours were done, they shopped for the young one.
A joint venture between Emami Limited, headquartered in Kolkata and the Chennai Landmark, the Kolkata chapter, just over three years old, decided to give its young readers a more complete experience. Incidentally, the Chennai Landmark has lived up to its name with a never-before shop space for books, dedicating 50,000 sq ft while its soon-to-be-opened Bangalore counterpart will cover 40,000 sq ft. "We have a retail format that is unique with a combination of books, music, toys, gifts, stationery," explains Gautam Jatia of Emami Landmark Stores, pointing out that this is one of the few stores with no section for garments.
For the first three years, Kolkata's Landmark asked its young readers to share a floor with their parents. With stationery and gifts and toys on the same floor, it was a bit of this and a bit of that, building up for a satisfying experience. But with growing response from children, the new level was appropriately timed. Says Jatia, "We've always felt that the child is a very important customer for Landmark." Indeed, as many advertisers and consumer manufacturers have also noticed, Landmark respects the fact that "often, the child is the driving force behind the family outing." Wordsworthian, almost, in its echoes to the thought that the child is the father of the man!
Now, the children are literally being given more space and their very own space. Of course, kid readers are happy. And so are parents and grandparents. Says Amita Biswas, browsing through the Indian publishers' section for possible books to send her grandchildren abroad, "Not only does Landmark cater for more books for children, I find it interesting that this is one of the few bookstores in the city that has such a large collection of both foreign and Indian titles." That's the ground reality when you have so much of space!
As for the children, they couldn't be more pleased. There are still some books for them on the original level and some on the new one, which can be a trifle confusing, but they aren't complaining.
As long as they have more to browse through and more to read and more to choose from, it's a happy development for Kolkata's kids.