Your favourite book, for Rs 500 to Rs 50

A substantial portion of India’s flourishing pirated book trade has virtually become part of the street furniture in Delhi, reports Nandini R Iyer.

Delhi is a goldmine for booklovers offering something to suit all budgets. To start with, there are the second-hand bookstores all over the city, sourcing their material from those who discard old books to even the humble kabariwallahs. Among the more famous of these is the shop behind Plaza Cinema in CP. And though it’s shopowner is legendary for being able to source just about any book one is looking for, what’s on display at the shop are John Grishams and Sidney Sheldons.

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Equally famous are the fathers-sons quartet who own the Mid Land, Book Land, New Book Land shops in Janpath, Aurobindo Place, South Extension etc. Starting out with a small kiosk, the father established himself as a favourite with book buyers by being willing to share a larger portion of his commission than any other store. “Unless you own a bookshop yourself, it is impossible to find books cheaper in Delhi than here,” says Tara Gahlot, outside New Book Land in Janpath.

The second-hand booksellers at Nehru Place, Priya Cinema, Karol Bagh and Saket are also popular. But no discussion on second-hand books in Delhi is complete without a mention of the book bazaar at Daryaganj that starts at 7 am every Sunday. “There’s everything, from 200 Recipes for Blue Cheese to Living With Alzheimer’s and everything in between,” says Dominic D’Souza, a regular. “And it’s not just books in English, you will find Urdu, Arabic, and Hindi by the cartload,” he says. Plus, all those foreign language books discarded by tourists also find their way here.

These are the books that have been reported as destroyed to the original publisher by unscrupulous bookstore owners. The publishers’ loss became the avid reader’s gain in the seventies when enterprising people in Delhi began sticking on a large piece of brown cello-tape on the book’s naked spine. These can be found in most colonies for Rs 10-50.