Journalism of Courage
After working as a commissioned seller of books for a while in the late 1980s, Kanhaiyalal Solanki decided to start his own venture. With two bags filled with books, Kanhaiyalal started a bookstall under his name at Pune’s Moledina Road, Camp, in 1989. Three-and-a-half decades later, Kanhaiyalal and his son Anand cater to the city’s rich community of avid readers with a myriad collection of fiction and non-fiction books spread across genres, magazines, graphic novels, comics and collector’s box sets. But it is Anand’s reader-specific recommendations and warm conversations that see loyal patrons returning to Solanki Bookseller despite the multitude of options available online.
Purely for the love of books
“With about Rs 2,000, I bought some books, some second-hand from Mumbai, and started the stall back in 1989. Slowly, readers who lived in the Camp area frequented my stall to purchase books and soon my son joined me,” says 70-year-old Kanhaiyalal.
The outdoor bookstall is strategically located in the ground floor corridor of an old office building of Atur Chambers, with books stacked in piles, and no boards to display its name or advertise discounts.
After completing his education, Anand took over the reins of the bookselling business from his father in 1999. Anand had closely observed his father interact with customers, talk about books and learnt how to engage in conversations that opened a window to a reader’s reading preferences.
“I made keen observations of the reading habits that the people living in the city harboured and that helped me curate my collection. People were reading a lot of books by Irving Wallace, Sidney Sheldon and Arthur Hailey in the early 90s. As the demand from the people grew, I had to take the required steps to upgrade the bookselling business. With the help of the owners of a former bookstore in the neighbourhood, Manneys, I got in touch with publishing and distribution executives to acquire copies of new releases…soon, things took off,” says Anand.
Reminiscing about the time when the store witnessed one of the biggest book releases in the world – J K Rowling’s ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’ – Anand says, “The Harry Potter books always drove people in numbers to my stall. When the seventh book of the series, ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’, was due to come out summer of 2007, people could not wait to get their hands on a copy. Understanding the feelings of the excited readers, I remember opening my stall at 5 in the morning, and an hour and a half later, there was a big line next to my stall…It was all in the papers the next day.”
Where the reader comes first
For Anand, it was never about selling books. “I might not be as well-read as many of my patrons but through the countless interactions I have had with them on a day-to-day basis, I have a good amount of knowledge of the books, what the story is about, trends in books to name a few. In fact, when my loyal customers come back, asking them a few questions about their latest reads adds to my existing information on the book and also helps me make better recommendations for them. I try to give each of my customers a customised experience with my recommendations, which I call ‘reader consultation’,” he says.
By interacting with each customer who picks up a book to read the blurb, Anand says, he can now suggest recommendations that best fit their taste. As his bookstall’s simple yet effective motto puts it – ‘Good Books, Good Recommendation’.
Anand, understandably, is a celebrity of sorts among bibliophiles in Pune and Solanki Bookseller has attracted bestselling authors such as Amish Tripathi, Ashwin Sanghi, Novoneel Chakraborty, Barkha Dutt, Sai Deepak, Vikram Sampat, Kabir Bedi and Sudeep Nagarkar, to name a few. For Anand, however, the most cherished author visit was when English novelist Jeffrey Archer dropped in during the launch of his book ‘A Prisoner of Birth’. “Jeffrey Archer visiting my bookstall still remains one of the biggest highlights for my book stall and my life,” he said.
Thriving despite online sales and the pandemic
Although online retail platforms ate away a chunk of bookshops’ sales, Anand feels that the world going digital and the advent of social media proved to be beneficial for him. “For one, I did not put up a shop as space like that is an added liability in terms of finances. I want to keep doing this solely for the love I have for books and to see the same in the hearts of readers who come to buy books from me, he says. “After the internet, online shopping became one of the biggest competitors, yet it also exposed readers to a vast range of authors, top-listed books and translated works. In fact, it was my two sons, Prem and Raj, who introduced me to Japanese manga, which is quite popular and very much in demand,” he points out.
Even when the pandemic took a toll on several book businesses, Anand rose to the challenge and adapted to the circumstances. “I started home deliveries when things were a tad bit better. My loyal customers had demanded books they wished to read in their isolation and this is what I strive to do, every day, to be able to give them books they would enjoy reading,” he says.
Talking to The Indian Express, 30-year-old Jagdish Laddha, one of the many who frequent Solanki Bookseller to fill their bookshelves and to-be-read lists, says, “I love buying books from here, even though I have to come all the way from another part of the city. It is because of Anand uncle’s recommendations that 90 per cent of the time, I have ended up loving books. On average, I end up taking three to five books at a time.”
For Anand Solanki, who can be seen smiling and recommending new titles to avid readers while his now-retired father carefully hands out bookmarks, there can be no bigger reward than this.
