The Sahitya Akademi Bookstore is inside a Metro Station!

Sahitya Akademi’s bookstore is their first ever bookshop outside the office premises. With a rich collection of Indian literature, located on the concourse level of Kashmere Gate metro station, this is probably the best way to pass time on your commute.

While we continued to watch age-old bookshops closing in our beloved city, there was a glimmer of hope when we chanced upon the quaint, unassuming bookstore, sitting in one corner of the highly crowded Kashmere Gate metro station. It’s been around for a year now, we were told.

The treasure trove of literature, written in various regional languages, would forever remain inaccessible to us, if it were not for translations of these works published by the Sahitya Akademi.

Take note that it is the only institution that undertakes literary activities in 24 {!} Indian languages, including English, and one can find most of these works in this bookstore.

One walk down the rows of shelves and you’ll realise that mainstream popular fiction isn’t available here. From translations to biographies, poetry to fiction, short stories to original works in Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Maithili among others, this delightful bookstore is home to a lot of variety.

You can also purchase their journals in English {Indian literature}, Hindi {Samkaalin Bhartiya Sahitya} and Sanskrit {Sanskrit Pratibha} here. Subscription forms for the same are also available.

If you’re a Metro Smart Card user, like every second Delhiite, you get a 15 per cent discount on the books purchased and 25 per cent if you become a member of their book club! We picked around five-six books, and our haul came to less than INR 500; so one can imagine how inexpensive the books are {and how tired our arms were!}.

Timings: 10am – 8pm {Open all days except public holidays}