At the age of 17, equipped with a Higher Secondary School Certificate, I decided to earn my own pocket money. My motivation: buying books, building my own little library. I scrupulously put away the small sums I made by giving tuitions. And at the coming of every new year, I would watch out for that large advertisement in red on the first page of the Times, announcing the Strand Book Fair at Sunderbai Hall in New Marine Lines. Spending a whole afternoon there and trudging back through the Azad Maiden loaded with my booty in those glossy beige-cloloured shopping bags from Strand was inexpressible happiness in those innocent days when I would wolf down one book a week.
Mr. Shanbag and his team soon became angels of joy. Strand Book Stall was never just a store: it was a place where I often made delightful discoveries, always felt rewarded with unbelievable discounts and at times bumped into an equally nutsy friend with whom I could squeal at titles and share a snack on my way back to Victoria Terminus. In those days, Strand was my only hope if I wanted a title that was hard to come by. Soon, I simply stopped bothering to approach any other bookstore, for the amazing guys at Strand never disappointed. What’s more, however difficult to procure the title may have been, they always offered their 20% discount. You can imagine what discounts meant to someone who made around Rs. 3,000 a year.
When I started teaching at Ruia, I made sure my religion of madness was rapidly disseminated among my students. Then the annual book fair became a picnic on which I would be accompanied by a few excited students. I became one of them as we navigated through the crowds browsing the rows of books in the large hall, where my relationship with my young students transformed into friendship. My trips to the store also became more frequent in these later years, for I would regularly order multiple copies of books prescribed on the B.A. syllabus, and the staff would readily oblige.
Sadly, I have forgotten when I last visitied Strand and the annual book fair. It was quite some time ago. On my last visit, the store still had its loyal visitors, but the old lustre and spirit in the air was gone. Like many other converts, I too have given in to the comfort and ease of online shopping. My home collection has branched into several cupboards and I don’t need to count every penny to invest in books anymore. But I have to admit that with this ease, that joy and sense of fulfilment that each new book brought seems to have dwindled, thanks also to the increased responsibilities of life and work.
What Strand will always mean to me is the motivation to strive for small joys, the carefree discovery of new knowledge and the desire to share that delight with those around me. And it stands for the wonderful tactile, smell-good world of books that are not just digital pages never quite real -- a world distinct from the lure of quick commerce and quicker paperless expenditure. And it means memories of the texture of a book, the colours of its covers, small bends in the mind’s infinite journeys and those pages that slowly turn yellow, shade by shade, when you are not looking.
(Strand, Mumbai's iconic bookstore at Fort, is all set to be closed down permanently. The news has led to an outpouring of sentiment among book lovers in the city.)
