The Old Book Shop
A antique book shop in the heart of bustling bazaar... It is still there. I happened to take a peek at it. And the old guy was still there.
Usually in my summer holidays I used to go to my grandmother's place, which is the heart of Kolhapur city. And I used to get pretty bored, especially in the afternoons, when everybody used to go to sleep. I used to check out the creaky and dusty old attic in the house, checking out dusty old books, mostly my grandfather's who was a professor in Botany.
The wada is very near to MahaLaxmi temple, which is bang in the center of the city. There is a mandai, a bazaar, typical Indian style nearby, where one gets everything ranging from utensils, common household items to foodgrains and vegetables.
In the middle of all this is an old raddi ka dukaan. Sandwiched right in between two open air foodgrain shops, there sits an old guy, who is surrounded by books from all sides.
The old guy is an interesting fellow. He is not much interested in his business, he typically engrossed in reading some book. He buys books at radii rate, sells them at marginally higher costs.
I used to frequent his place. I would buy any books lying around. Most would cost something like 2-3 rupees. This was some 8-10 years back. And pretty soon I had collected a horde of books. Some fine books, Reader's digest short stories collections. Reader's digest issues from the 1950's - 1980's. In a span of a year and a half I had collected something like eighty ninety issues of RD. I still remember the old guy diligently searching for RD's in his pile of books.
I checked up on the old guy few days back. He was still there. Nothing has changed.
Usually in my summer holidays I used to go to my grandmother's place, which is the heart of Kolhapur city. And I used to get pretty bored, especially in the afternoons, when everybody used to go to sleep. I used to check out the creaky and dusty old attic in the house, checking out dusty old books, mostly my grandfather's who was a professor in Botany.
The wada is very near to MahaLaxmi temple, which is bang in the center of the city. There is a mandai, a bazaar, typical Indian style nearby, where one gets everything ranging from utensils, common household items to foodgrains and vegetables.
In the middle of all this is an old raddi ka dukaan. Sandwiched right in between two open air foodgrain shops, there sits an old guy, who is surrounded by books from all sides.
The old guy is an interesting fellow. He is not much interested in his business, he typically engrossed in reading some book. He buys books at radii rate, sells them at marginally higher costs.
I used to frequent his place. I would buy any books lying around. Most would cost something like 2-3 rupees. This was some 8-10 years back. And pretty soon I had collected a horde of books. Some fine books, Reader's digest short stories collections. Reader's digest issues from the 1950's - 1980's. In a span of a year and a half I had collected something like eighty ninety issues of RD. I still remember the old guy diligently searching for RD's in his pile of books.
I checked up on the old guy few days back. He was still there. Nothing has changed.
posted by Devendra at 9:39 AM
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