When we were all toddlers, dusty antics and closed rooms brimming with toys and curiosity excited us a lot. The smell and look of books that have withstood the test of time, the drift of air and the countless flipping, is something that possibly can never get old. They live and tell us about what we have left behind. They give us a platform to compare and to dream. In the narrow lanes of the capital's Shankar market, there exists a place that has withstood the test of time and critics alike.
In a corner of an alley in Shankar Market, one can easily spot a red coloured old-school painted hoarding that says 44-Ram Gopal And Sons' and small writing under it that says 'Bookshop and Library'. The red of the hoarding shines bright, so does the beauty of the place in itself. The two-way entry of the bookstore is donned with shelves of the forgotten past. The shelves are as old as the books are. 1967, 1970,1990 says the publishing date on each of the book. You can see and feel the yellowness crumple under you as you see the time passing by; The years of lips that read it and the fingers that bookmarked it. One can also spot a dog-eared page left undone, probably left in time. All classics and masala potboilers sing aloud not from the present but from the mindset that prevailed in a distant past.
The bookstore also is a library. The owner who we are told is an ex IFS, wanted it to function as a library, where people could borrow it at a nominal price instead of buying it. Well, one thing's still the same: there is a price for late returns. The prices are dirt cheap and the ambience jewel rich. We were only but some madmen in the attic, searching for the past that we left behind, still intact.
A must visit!
NOTE: This is majorly a hand-me-down bookstore.
In a corner of an alley in Shankar Market, one can easily spot a red coloured old-school painted hoarding that says 44-Ram Gopal And Sons' and small writing under it that says 'Bookshop and Library'. The red of the hoarding shines bright, so does the beauty of the place in itself. The two-way entry of the bookstore is donned with shelves of the forgotten past. The shelves are as old as the books are. 1967, 1970,1990 says the publishing date on each of the book. You can see and feel the yellowness crumple under you as you see the time passing by; The years of lips that read it and the fingers that bookmarked it. One can also spot a dog-eared page left undone, probably left in time. All classics and masala potboilers sing aloud not from the present but from the mindset that prevailed in a distant past.
The bookstore also is a library. The owner who we are told is an ex IFS, wanted it to function as a library, where people could borrow it at a nominal price instead of buying it. Well, one thing's still the same: there is a price for late returns. The prices are dirt cheap and the ambience jewel rich. We were only but some madmen in the attic, searching for the past that we left behind, still intact.
A must visit!
NOTE: This is majorly a hand-me-down bookstore.