At Delhi’s Daryaganj, bibliophiles can weigh their options — literally

Daryaganj may no longer be home to the iconic Sunday Book Bazar, a 50-year old popular weekly books market that was shifted to the nearby Mahila Haat about two years ago, but over a dozen permanent bookshops have come up in the central Delhi market in the past few years.

It is afternoon and Abhishek Jain, who runs Big Book Bazar, in Daryaganj, is busy weighing stacks of books selected by his customers. The shop, swarming with patrons, sells books by weight. “Eighty per cent of my customers are dealers of used books from all across the country, who buy anything from 100 kg to 1,000 kg of books,” says Jain, sitting at the counter of his shop which has piles of books divided into various categories—novels, coffee table, children’s story books, Mills & Boon , Hindi literature -- all priced between ₹150 and ₹200 kg per kilo.

Most of these bookshops in Daryaganj used to be garment and shoe shops until a few years back. Today, there is a huge demand for space for bookshops in the market, and some of those looking to open bookshops are those who used to sell books in the Sunday Book Bazar. (Amal KS/HT Photo)

There are weighing machines placed at different points for the customers to weigh the books they want to buy. But the Big Books Bazar is not the only of its kind bookshop.

Daryaganj may no longer be home to the iconic Sunday Book Bazar, a 50-year old popular weekly books market that was shifted to the nearby Mahila Haat about two years ago, but over a dozen permanent bookshops have come up in the central Delhi market in the past few years. A bulk of the books in the market are overstocks of publishers and libraries in the US and the UK, and those donated or sold by individuals. “We import nine shipping containers of books every year from these countries. These are all original books,” says Abhishek.

A few metres away from his shop is Book Affair, one of the biggest and the busiest bookshops in Daryaganj. Mayank Jain , who runs the shop with his father, says they also buy overstocks of Indian publishers. “We recently bought about 20 tonnes of books from Westland Books, which has shut shop,” says Mayank Jain.

It is afternoon and his shop is crowded. His customers, he says, include book lovers, libraries all over India and over 500 book dealers who sell used books online through e-commerce sites, and Instagram. “They buy hundreds of kilos of books from us on special rates,” says Mayank, who, like many other bookshops in the market, has warehouses in Burari and Kheda on the outskirts of the capital.

While most books in his shop are priced between ₹200 per kg, the costliest ones -- sold at ₹500 per kg-- are in a section devoted to vintage paperbacks by Penguin, many of them over 70 years old.

Many online booksellers testify to Daryaganj being a major source for bulk buying. “It has some of the biggest used books importers, and has emerged as the country’s biggest wholesale used books market. We procure quite a lot of our books from there,” says Vidyut Sharma , co-founder, Bookchor, one of India’s biggest online platforms selling used books.

While the bulk of the books in these shops are popular fiction titles by writers such as Lee Child, Stephen King, Cecilia Ahern and Nicholas Sparks, one can also find bestsellers by literary giants such as Elena Ferrante, Paul Auster, Orhan Pamuk and Tony Morrison among others. “In the past three years, I have built up an entire home library with books, including many rare books, bought from these shops. I have bought for ₹50 the brand new imported editions of literary novels that otherwise cost ₹2,000 on Amazon. But one has to spend time here and do some deep digging to find such books,” says Rahul Khanna, a content writer, who is a regular at these Daryaganj bookshops.

On his latest visit to the market on Thursday, Khanna bought 5 kgs of books at ₹200 per kg that included Klara and the Sun By Kazuo Ishiguro, Any Human Heart by William Boyd, Bad Girl by Mario Vargas Llosa, and over a dozen novels for his teenage daughter. “But I spent almost two hours of shifting through mounds of books here.”

Rishabh Dhawan , who last year opened Dhawan Books in the market, says he recently sold 18 tonnes of books to an online second hand bookseller. “Roughly, about 10 per cent of 20 tonnes books in a shipping container are of pretty high quality and recover the cost for the entire stock, ” he says, pointing to a shelf with a set of books by Lucy Maud Montgomery in pristine condition that were among thousands of books that arrived in a recent shipment. “Not just wholesale book dealers, my shop also attracts a lot of book collectors. While some of my customers are very knowledgeable about books, others just buy hardbound copies to decorate their drawing rooms.”

Most of these bookshops in Daryaganj used to be garment and shoe shops until a few years back. Today, there is a huge demand for space for bookshops in the market, and some of those looking to open bookshops are those who used to sell books in the Sunday Book Bazar. But not all can afford the high rentals. The current bookshops pay anything between ₹75, 000 to ₹3 lakh a month in rent, depending on the size of the shop.

“Sunday Books Bazar had earned Daryaganj the reputation of an ultimate destination for used affordable books, and a lot of people want to cash in on that,” says Arun (he uses only one name) , who opened his bookshop four months back in the market. His family, he says, has been in the used books trade for about three decades and also sold books at Sunday Books Bazar. “ We desperately wanted to return to Daryaganj, ” he says. “I source a lot of books from the personal collections of people in Delhi and NCR.”

Unlike the relocated Sunday Books Bazar, these book shops remain open all days of the week but Sundays, says Arun, are the best days for business. So, what are the current bestsellers at his shop? “Stock market books, and the buyers are young people wanting to invest in the market. Then books by writers such as Stephen King, Agatha Christie always sell fast. I am sure in the years to come Daryaganj will become globally famous as a used books market,” he says.

But a few bookshop owners worry that pirated books too are beginning to make their way into the market . “It might mar the reputation of the otherwise fledging used books destination. This needs to stop,” says a bookshop owner who asked not to be named.