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Enter a bookworm?s universe
He is the biggest bookworm in the city?he lives among them and lives on them. Meet Chander Prakash who has given Lucknow a Book Mall at his Universal Booksellers, Hazratganj, which is first of its kind book-mall in the country. Just anyone can walk into his book-mall (even if one does not intend to buy a book).
He is the biggest bookworm in the city—he lives among them and lives on them.
Meet Chander Prakash who has given Lucknow a Book Mall at his Universal Booksellers, Hazratganj, which is first of its kind book-mall in the country. Just anyone can walk into his book-mall (even if one does not intend to buy a book).
Stay there for hours reading, flipping through books, and checking out various sections. While rarely a bookstall provides chairs, this mall also provides you free coffee.
So one can sit amidst the racks and read. Attendants don’t bother how long one stays and reads in the mall. It common to see people feeding excerpts from a book into their laptops or jotting down contents from a book here.
“I also live for books,” said Chander Prakash of Universal Booksellers, Hazratganj.
What does he have to say about books? “It takes all kind of nonsense from you.
You sit with it, lie down with it, or put it under your pillow, throw it—it takes just anything from you. In return it gives you what no other experience can provide. It empowers you, it increases you knowledge, it educates, it entertains, it helps you while away time well, and it develops you as an individual,” says Chander Prakash.
It was before the Partition that his father and uncle moved from Multan to Lucknow and set up their book trade here. Emulating him, many other relatives to followed suit and came to Lucknow and learnt book trade under them at Universal Book Depot. And all of them set up bookstores in different parts of the country with ‘Universal’ as their main name. In 1975, Chander along with his brother Vishan Prakash moved the shop to its present location from near the Sahu cinema. He (along with son Gaurav) and Vishan(with his son Manav) have three shops—Universal Booksellers, Hazratganj, Universal Booksellers, Mahanagar and Comup Shoppe, Hazratganj.
“We have seen book trade evolve in many shades in last 40 years,” says Chander who started attending works at the shop since his school days. “I began working among the shelves, packing of books and delivering them,” he said.
He has been promoting book reading for quite sometime. Apart from the Book Mall, he in past two years organised numerous interactive bookreading and interactive sessions with Justice Leela Seth, Tom Alter, Amresh Mishra, or Vikas Swarup. He supports Kadambini Club (Hindi) and Caferati (English) literary or book clubs. Or book fests like the Harry Potter book festival.
Why does he do all this apart from the business of books? “Being in book business also means social obligations. I cannot ignore it as I am dealing in knowledge. Lucknow now has no network of libraries, so my ideas are even more relevant. Drawing people to books would help people to stay away from stupid things that they do many times. I must let books reach to maximum people. I must become a natural conduit to free flow of knowledge to the extent possible,” he explains.
Lucknow too is his area of interest. He had been deputy chief and then chief of the Civil Defense, Lucknow for eight years. He is member of Lucknow Management Association and the Club of Lucknow. “Working for the city is natural for me. I feel blessed that I am born in this city. There is no city in the world like Lucknow. It has massive diversity and massive harmony.”
When he silently worked to make Hazratganj a ‘disabled friendly zone’ along with few other traders, the Handicapped Welfare Department noticed it and felicitated him. “Whether one does something or not hardly matters. There should be a humane reaction within a person towards human beings around,” he says.
He also is the vice president of Hazratganj Traders Association (HTA) and has been working along with its president and other members towards making Ganj a better shopping area. He does not fear any onslaught from the malls to the conventional markets. He says: “I have studied extensively that in most of the developed countries the majority of trade happens in unorganized sector than in malls. There is on danger to the existing markets, but from the changing mall culture, traders must learn to evolve.”
