Delhiwale: Future’s bookstore

Lakshmi Book Store in Connaught Place, specializing in occult sciences, limits customer visits to 15 minutes, a rule from Covid times. Founded in 1951, it thrives under Ashim's stewardship.

Bookstores aspire to build a community of loyal readers, nudging the book browsers to linger on for hours. But this bookstore has a note stamped on the counter saying: “Please do not spend more than 15 minutes in the shop.”

The little-known Lakshmi Book Store in Connaught Place’s Janpath Bhawan specialises in “occult sciences.” (HT Photo)

The little-known Lakshmi Book Store in Connaught Place’s Janpath Bhawan specialises in “occult sciences,” crammed with volumes on astrology’s many branches—astronomy, palmistry, numerology, Vastu, tarot card and face reading. The mezzanine floor destination is empty this evening in contrast to the jam-packed eateries (including the legendary Depaul’s!) downstairs in the market corridor.

The shop started as a pavement stall in CP in 1951 by migrant Prem Sagar. It moved through a series of CP spots before metamorphosing into a shop, and settling down at its current GPS, originally stacked with novels, poetry, guidebooks and magazines. The legacy thrived under the founder’s son, the late Mohinder. Circumstances took a beating around 2010 with the coming of online book trading, and particularly with the consequent discount wars raged between the capital’s brick-and-mortar bookstores. So much so that CP bookseller Anil Arora had to shut down his iconic Bookworm in 2008.

To make the bookstore’s future more stable, Ashim replaced the “general books,” which could be sighted in any bookstore, with books focusing, literally, on the future. Lakshmi’s shelves are today claimed by titles like Prediction Secrets, Subtleties of Medical Astrology, Encyclopaedia of Numerology, Elements of Vedic Astrology, Astrological Study of Natural Disasters, Pracheen Yantra-Mantra-Tantra Mahashastra, The Moor’s Las… wait, this one’s a Salman Rushdie novel!—obviously a relic of the bookstore’s “general books” past.

The friendly owner remarks that his bookstore is patronised by Delhi’s “top astrologers.” On the aforementioned 15-minute advisory for customers, he breaks into a smile, explaining, “I had taped it on the counter during the Covid times and never took it off.”

The bookstore opens from 10am to 7pm, Sunday closed.