HELLO JI!
A WORD (OR TWO HUNDRED) FROM THE EDITOR
The late Mr Shanbhag of Premier Book Shop in Bangalore. Image credit: Mr Shanbag’s Shop/ASHA GHOSH.
I connected with Asha Ghosh in 2011 over her documentary Mr Shanbag’s Shop. Jeeth, my friend in Chicago, had sent me the link to the trailer – her niece in New York having sent it to her first.
People who loved Premier Book Shop and Mr Shanbhag (there’s an h in his name) are many and spread around the globe. “The extent of Mr Shanbag’s global fan club never ceases to amaze me!” Asha wrote back.
Growing up in Bangalore, I had spent many happy hours in Premier, my absolute favourite bookshop on the planet. On each trip back home, a visit was a must. I’ve yet to discover another that made me feel the way I did in that small space crammed with books. And Mr Shanbhag knew every book in every pile. Unlike eager and helpful but clueless staff at the big stores. Like the one who kept offering me RL Stevenson titles when I was looking for DE Stevenson. And this after going through catalogues on their computers.
Mr Shanbhag also knew his customers personally. As I graduated from being a cash-strapped student who only bought books I had already read (ones I knew I loved enough to keep) as I couldn’t risk a bestseller that I might not like, to having a little more money to spend on books, to introducing my husband to the store, to visiting on trips back home after we left India, he kept track. He would recommend titles he thought I’d like.
One year, after I’d selected my books, I offered to hold my baby nephew to allow my sister-in-law to browse in peace. Standing outside, I spotted a poster for Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies which had just won the Pulitzer for fiction. I stuck my head inside with a request to add it to my pile. He looked up from his little table by the door and said, “I thought you’d have read this by now”. Even though he was “scolding” me, it felt like I’d received a certificate for reading!
I received the sad news of Mr Shanbhag’s recent passing from Anitha, my friend in Bangalore.
Another old Bangalore link gone, but then the best ones are preserved in our memories. He’d retired some years ago, but both he and Premier were such Bangalore fixtures that whenever old friends gathered, we shared memories of Premier. Like the time a heavily-pregnant Bisoka insisted on squeezing past a precariously balanced pile of books. Or the time another friend read an entire Asterix and left without purchasing it. “I was broke!” she says by way of explanation. “And it was not like I was sneaking it past Mr Shanbhag – wherever you were in that shop, you were under his nose!”
I picture myself, standing in front of where Premier used to be, telling newcomers to the city that once upon a time, a little bookshop on this spot nurtured generations of readers.
Thank you, Mr Shanbhag, for the memories, the stories and all the books.
Shagorika Easwar