Delhiwale: The back-room bookshop near Regal cinema

A ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ little store filled with books outside the mainstream.

Some bookshops exist outside the mainstream, and in which you’ll come across titles almost impossible to spot elsewhere. One such place exists in the heart of the very mainstream Connaught Place.

The book shop at the back of Regal cinema building is so small that three browsers make it feel jam-packed. (HT Photo)

But finding this curious shop requires some instructions. It’s tucked away in a back-corner of the People Tree boutique—which is tucked away on one side of the Regal Cinema Building in Central Delhi. (Right, got that?)

The boutique itself is small and the bookstore so small that three browsers make it feel jam-packed. But maybe this just adds to the charm of a space stocked with books otherwise not easy to find. (If they happen to be in other shops at all, they often get lost amid piles of more popular titles.)

Such as Four Arguments for The Elimination of Television. Or, An India Portia. To say nothing of that perennial favourite Negotiating Adolescence in Bangladesh.

Yet, these curious titles somehow grow on you, like the teeny-weenie shop itself, founded some 30 years ago. Its rather secretive location induces a feeling of thrill and escape. On a sweltering afternoon like today one can simply sit on the one and only mooda (cane stool) and focus on the reassuring sound of the ceiling fan. No one will disturb you.

Or perhaps gaze upon the lovely wooden ceiling, or the shop manager’s chair that is draped in a beautiful homely-looking worn-out coverlet.

Or maybe you’ll want to flip through the curiously titled paperbacks like Karl Marx on India. In any case, the shop has an impressive selection on gender studies.

It’s open daily from 11.30am to 7.30pm.