BENGALURU AND ITS TRYST WITH INDIE BOOKSTORES

By- Alisha Varandani (1934117)

Shibangi Podder (1934148)
Soumya Unhelkar (1934138)

The city of Bengaluru has long been known as the book-lover’s paradise. The
heart of the city lies in its independent indie bookshops, some of which have a
clientele as diverse as Ruskin Bond, CV Raman, and Ramachandra Guha, apart
from several IT professionals and students who frequent these places regularly.
However, the emergence of online mammoths such as Amazon, which offer the
same books at a cheaper cost and provide door-to-door service; has seriously
hampered these businesses. A visit to these bookstores- all of which are located
within walking distance on Brigade Road, MG Road and Church street-
provided surprising insights into the same.
Out of these stores,
Blossoms is a name
synonymous with a
treasure trove of books
for every Bengaluru
citizen. Mayi Gowda, the
proprietor of Blossoms
Books house, has also
made a name for himself
1Towers like these are a common sight at Blossoms Bookhouse (picture credits- in the city’s bibliophile
Alisha Varandani)
circles for his open
nature and policy of
interacting with the clientele. His theory of ‘consumer obsession’- one that he
accidentally derives from his competitor, Jeff Bezos- has sustained Blossoms
into the new decade, and they cite 45 lakhs a year as their annual profit. A quick
glance through the stack of books they maintain show that not all of them have
been published in India. Mr Gowda is quick to add that he also imports a vast
majority of his 300,000 titles, and has even devoted a corner to gramophone
records and rare comic books. “We’re not facing any challenges,” he says. “We
take a great personal interest in what customers want to read, and I think that’s
why we are successful.”
This ethos of consumer-centric business is aided by word of mouth, Mr. Gowda
asserts. The bookshop even has a Tumblr dedicated to it, called Overheard at
Blossoms. One of the interesting anecdotes mentioned there involves famous
historian Ramachandra Guha and MR Gowda. He once offered to sell Guha a
first edition of an 8-volume work on Gandhi by DG Tendulkar, with rare
photographs by Vithalbhai Zaveri. Guha replied that he already had a copy but
Gowda had an ace up his sleeve: the copy he had was signed by both Tendulkar
and Zaveri! Guha took the bait and offered to exchange his set for Gowda’s,
paying a discounted price for the signed volume. But Gowda went one better
and convinced Guha to inscribe his personal set, since he was a biographer of
Gandhi. This digitization and sharing of anecdotes has boosted the store’s
popularity.
Undergraduate students who were
found shopping in the store were also
interviewed, and they, too, agreed
that despite the store not stocking up
on a lot of ‘pop-culture’ novels, they
still frequent it because of its supply
of rare anthologies, sold at a
discounted rate. These titles are
maintained by a polite staff, which is
also one of the win-win factors for
the shop. Thus, this diverse clientele,
approachable staff, connections
within the elite scholars of the city
and not being limited to only books
has kept their business thriving.
As a result of a loyal customer base,
every bookshop has become famous
for a certain kind of book or
literature that is hard to find even on
online stores. The Bookworm, run by
Krishna Gowda, for instance, has
rare, out-print books from the early
2 The stack of old books maintained at Blossoms (picture
credits- Soumya Unhelkar)
19th Century, such as John Wilkes’ works. Similarly, Blossoms has a diverse
collection in terms of poetry, deign, history and crime. Goobe’s bookshop on
Brigade road has a plethora of leftist-leaning works, as well as books on the
ecology and its conservation. Infact, they sell popular authors like Margaret
Atwood’s works at 25 rupees apiece, having a strict policy of no popular fiction
works being put on display. But in the age of pop-culture and lucid language,
this policy might not always work in their favour. Kannada gems can be found
in Jayanagar’s Nagasri store, while Indian authors are piled in Koramangala’s
Atta Galatta. However, the last two stores don’t have their locations in their
favour and as a result, their customers are often a small, elite circle of literature
enthusiasts, instead of the immense numbers of university students that drive the
profits of Blossoms and the Bookworm.
This decline in the number of people who can afford to or venture to buy a book
physically, has been used by some stores in their favour. When we visited The
Bookworm, for instance, the founder, Krishna, was helping a customer
exchange her copy of The Gathering by Anne Enright, a novel she’d bought in
2008. Using the bookstore’s unique store credit system, she had to pay half the
book’s price as “reading fees”, and could exchange it at her convenience for
another book. . gular clientele use this system to bring back books they bought
years ago.

Select Bookshop, located

near Goobe’s, has struggled
to sustain itself. Often
hailed as Bangalore’s finest
antiquarian bookshop, it has
an entire chapter devoted to
itself in Ruskin Bond’s
3 The stack of classics and new editions at Select Bookshop (picture credits- recent collection of essays,
Alisha Varandani)
Confessions of A Book
Lover. The proprietor, Mr. Murthy, is always personally present to help the
patrons locate books. According to Murthy, Select’s sales are declining
probably because people are reading less.
 The state of decline is all too evident in
Gangaram Bookhouse, run by Prakash
Gangaram. The manager cited rent issues as
one major pest. Due to the development
occurring in nearby areas, the rent has been
increasing since years, due to which they had
to move their store from MG road to Church
Street. Advertisements in newspapers have
also become too expensive, he asserts. Due to
the rapid digitisation, there has been a drop in
their sales numbers also. However, loyalty
and brand name has kept them afloat.
“Bookselling is a noble profession,” said
4Gangaram Bookhouse (picture credits- Shibangi
Podder) Prakash Gangaram, who manages the store
now. “It is also like an ocean; you can stock millions of books, and still
someone will ask you for something you don’t have.” Although Gangaram has
survived, business has been hit hard by online marketplaces. “We can’t afford to
sell at cost price or below cost price, which these online bookstores do because
they want to gain control of the market," Gangaram said. "It’s also easier for
people to buy online than come to the bookstore.”
A strategy very commonly used by stores to sustain themselves is by expanding
their business beyond books- something that Blossoms has become adept at. If
Atta Galatta hosts storytelling shows, plays and poetry-reading sessions,
Goobe’s, Select and Blossom organise talks by under-the-radar sci-fi writers
and graphic novelists. Leading authors and thinkers such as Girish Karnad,
Ramachandra Guha and Shashi Deshpande visit these stores as regular
customers, not celebrities, ever ready for a quick chat and to share writing tips
and anecdotes from their lives
Thus, even though book sales are decreasing, location and diversification play a
major role in helping bookstores thrive. Given that a lot of the city’s populace
are students or professionals from outside the state and that advertisement is
very expensive in these times, it is obvious that not a lot of people know about
these places.
While several magazines do features on these places (a few customers
interviewed at the Bookworm, for instance, told us about its feature in the
Lonely Planet, which helped them know of it), the major deciding factor is often
consumer satisfaction.
How the proprietors harness and build on their legacy is to watch for. With
fierce online and offline competition, survival enough is not important, and
profits are needed even when sellers can’t afford to sell at discounted rates.