I just remembered my encounter with Indian bookstores inside The Taj in Mumbai. It wasn’t a very big bookstore, but eveything was well-appointed. The books about India or Indian authors were in front under the cash register. The shelves were almost from ceiling to floor as far as I could recall. And there was at least one copy of every book you might be interested to buy. The clerks were also very helpful and knew exactly what books they had.
In Delhi we went to the Full Circle bookshop in Khan Market with equally delightful Cafe Turtle on top of it. Here I met an at first surly book clerk who warmed up to me when I began to show interest in a book on Farsis. Also in Delhi I went to the Daryaganj which I mentioned in an earlier post.
In Calcutta we went to the Oxford bookstore which was also well-stocked.
And the most important thing about Indian bookstores is that they are cheap. It seems that India has it’s own branches of publishing houses which might account for it’s cheap books. What would cost 500 pesos in Manila would be only 300 pesos here. Had we known that sooner we might have bought more books. But then how would we have shipped it home?
