Book Mark

A worship started by late V N Dixit on January 1,1931,the International Book Service is not a book depot,but a service that was established with a prime motive to make available- English books to the English speaking crowd in the city. “Pune was a small town then and getting English books written by foreign authors meant ordering them from Mumbai. Out of tremendous passion for books,my father started importing English books from abroad making them available for the elite literary class in the city,” says Upendra V Dixit,owner and son of V N Dixit.

The first ever English book store in the city has also been a trendsetter in the book-business as they were the first ones to introduce the open-shelf system contrary to the then established system of- customer standing at the counter and asking for required books. “My father would always say that he was not a businessman but a missionary. Many-a-times,people coming to buy books do not have specific books in their mind. They know the topic and want to search books related to that. He would encourage people to spend ours at the bookshelves. Not only that,we were the first ones to introduce the ‘Signing Session’ in the city. A regular practice abroad,this session involves inviting the authors who talk about their book and sign the first copy that is sold from the store,” smiles Dixit whose guestlist for the session includes names such as- Nobel laureate William Golding,authors Kiran Bedi,Arundhati Roy,R K Laxman and so on.

Already popular,the revolutionary initiatives by the management soon turned the shop into a favourite hangout of philosophers,politicians,musicians,theatre personalities and so on. “Pune then,was the filled with intellectual people from all these fields. You name a literary scholar in the city and I can assure you that he or she has been our customer,” smiles Dixit whose elite customer-base boasts of names such as- Pandit Bhimsen Joshi,Yashwantrao Chavan,Dr Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan,P K Atre,Pu La Deshpande,Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar,S M Joshi and so on.

“I remember during the Samyukta Maharashtra Movement,Gadgil and S M Joshi would sit right here and discuss the development of the movement,” says Dixit pointing at a corner in the store adding,“Indira Gandhi was in Pune for education for a few years. In the book- Nehru’s letters to Indira,Nehru in one of the letters dated February 29,1944 advises Indira to visit The International Book Service in Pune for good books. We still have the copy of the letter with us.”

With changed calculations in book business and mega- bookstores supported by business honchos entering the industry,Dixit finds a mismatch between- business-for-profit and business-for-passion. He rightly puts with an example,“Fifteen days after the 1961 floods,Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was in Pune. While passing in an open jeep he saw my father standing at the bookstore. He waved and told the driver- That is Mr Dixit . The jeep was reversed and Nehru spent 15 minutes in to store. Bookstores can be many but as long as true booklovers like these who have known us for years are there,we would always continue worshipping books. After all it is personal and not commercial with us.”