There is a scene in the 1998 film You’ve Got Mail where the main character, played by Meg Ryan, wanders through the now empty bookshop that she had inherited from her mother, saying goodbye for the last time to what had been her shop, her livelihood, her family, and quite simply, her life. The empty shelves spoke of the aching loss of years of memories, camaraderie, discovery and friendship.
Twenty-five years ago, I watched that scene as an adult and struggled to swallow the lump in my throat as I remembered saying goodbye to my mother’s bookshop as a child. That shop – The Book Mark – had been a Calcutta fixture for some and KD Singh had helped my mother, his sister-in-law, set it up. Now, a quarter century later, that inconvenient lump is back in my throat as I say goodbye to KD’s first shop – The Bookshop – which will close its doors under that famous counter-culture peace sign on October 31. We are saying goodbye to so much more than a bookstore.
KD Singh, founder of The Bookshop. Photo: X/BookshopJB
KD and Nini Singh opened The Bookshop in Jorbagh in 1971. Nini has always said that the Bookshop was her fourth child. Of her children, this was unsurprisingly the most like KD: laid back, relaxed, and yet full of surprises. One went in there for the books of course, but also for the jazz, the company, and for a chat with KD and Nini. The shop did not occupy a large space – just two aisles and the children’s alcove at the back – so if a fair few had the same idea about craving some book talk and company, the aisles could fill up quite quickly. It was magic.
Perhaps a story about KD’s setting up The Book Mark in Calcutta might illuminate the atmosphere at The Bookshop. He was interviewing a young college graduate to help run the shop with my mother and asked her to name her favourite children’s authors. Nerves may have got the better of her, for she forgot to mention Enid Blyton. She got the job. It’s not that KD didn’t like Enid Blyton or that none of her books were to be found at The Bookshop (they were): it’s just that he firmly believed that there was so much more to children’s literature.
The Bookshop, Jorbagh. Photo: X/@BookshopJB
And so it was that when kids went to the children’s corner at The Bookshop, they discovered new worlds. They were spoken with as equals and guided to new discoveries, new authors, a whole universe of possibilities. I always associate the children’s corner with Nini – but that also had to do with the absolute joy she took in pulling out a book for a child, sitting down on a moora (stool) with them (in later years, there was often a cat who might have to be regretfully turfed off to make space), and leading them into a literary adventure. Sonal Narain, who took over as managing partner soon after KD’s passing in 2014, kept up that tradition.
In the end, it boils down to treating those who entered the shop as people first. You went to The Bookshop to browse. For real book lovers, this was heaven. You took your time; if you wanted to chat and ask for recommendations, you could. If you wanted to be left alone with the books, that was fine too. But if you did ask for suggestions, a whole new world of possibilities would open up, because you weren’t necessarily guided to the latest bestsellers. The recommendations depended on how you had been browsing before, and if you were a repeat customer (which most were), what you usually looked at.
I was reminded of this when Nini called to tell me that they had doubled the sales of my (only) book in the second month. And she knew exactly who had bought those two copies. The point of this is not to boast about my dizzying ascent up the bestseller list, but to illustrate something about Nini. She knew the people who came to her shop. She also told me that she had been pretty certain when one of those two customers had walked in that he would buy my book even before he’d picked it up because of his interests and career. (Being related to the proprietor got your book on the shelf, but familial relationships certainly did not extend to having your book promoted – the customer came first.)
It was an old-fashioned, courteous world for an old-fashioned time. That era seems to be slipping out of our grasp even as I type. In today’s world of Amazon and online shopping, of bestseller lists, of glitzy promotions and furious underselling, this was a completely different world. The Bookshop did not put their stock online. How could they – they often only had a couple of copies of each book at any given time, so that they could stock as varied an inventory as possible. Often, when you bought a book, you were taking home the only copy in the shop. (If you went back the next day, it had been replaced.) But the eclecticism came at a price: cut-throat promotions and online sales were out of the question.
The Bookshop, Jorbagh. Photo: X/@BookshopJB
The closest KD came to a commercial venture was when he opened another Bookshop in Khan Market in the 1980s. The Khan Market shop had a slightly different feel – I put it down to half the crowd in there swooning over Rachna, his daughter, who helped run the place. It was, of course, also a more accessible and popular market. And lovelorn suitors aside, The Bookshop was still the place to be. Long after they’d been showered by stardust, Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth, Arundhati Roy and others would continue to stop by, as did their readers. Quite often, the latter walked away with a signed copy. To KD, the college student in search of his latest Rushdie book was as important as the man himself. Contrarian? Perhaps. But that’s why the regulars returned, and returned, and returned.
The Khan Market episode ended almost twenty-five years later, in 2006, when the lease ran out, and KD returned to Jorbagh, where Nini had kept the original going, with a brief hiatus in the ‘80s. The regulars followed, mostly. The Khan Market site became another jewellery store, or something. I’d like to believe that a little bit of Khan Market’s soul withered with the Bookhshop’s going, but the truth is, the signs were there. The times were changing and The Bookshop was already belonging to another time.
Yet, life went on, even after the rupture of KD’s passing in 2014. Covid, however, was a mountain too high, at least for Nini. The store had to adapt to survive. Sonal Narain, who had joined the Khan Market shop in 2001, and was now managing partner, opted for some creative marketing. She and Mahika Chaturvedi took The Bookshop into the virtual space, but without putting their stock online. If you wanted a book, you emailed or called. A conversation ensued, and then books, having been jointly chosen, were despatched.
Sonal will now take The Bookshop – under its new name, The Bookshop Inc – on the next stage of its journey. The new edition of this book love story will open its doors in Lodhi Colony on November 1 – a new partnership, a new location, a new adventure.
For Nini, however, it is time to say goodbye to her fourth child. There have been wonderful moments, but now this child is ready to find her wings.
Farewell, Bookshop. Thank you for the books, the music, the companionship, the memories.
Priyanjali Malik is an author and commentator who was lucky enough to grow up in a bookshop.
