Book Box: Two Himalayan bookstores, a birthday and a borrowed book

At this time two years ago, I was reading books on Dussehra like The Three Hundred Ramayanas by A. K. Ramanujan and The Liberation of Sita by Volga.

This year, there are no Dussehra books, no trips down to the Kullu Dussehra mela to watch the ceremonial chariot procession. Instead, I stay up in the mountains at our new house, with Ajay-ji the plumber, figuring out where and why pipes are leaking, and with Sunil-ji the stone mason. Everyone here is ‘ji’, a habit I’ve quickly picked up from the architect, who addresses every workman as ‘mistriji’. And really, each one is a master craftsman, never mind if their schedules don’t always follow Western timetables.

Finally, the work is (mostly) done. It’s also The Other Reader’s birthday, so we decide to hit the town, which is really a fancy way of saying that we visit a few bookstores and celebrate by buying books.

But first, a picnic by the river with sandwiches, milk cake, a flask full of coffee, and our books. It sounds idyllic. Except that at first it’s too cold. Then the sun comes out, and it feels so warm and toasty and delicious that a great drowsiness steals over us. We end up talking very little, and reading not at all, mostly half-sleeping, gazing at the great black, rugged rocks ahead of us and listening to the river cascading down the mountainside.

Too soon it is time to leave. En route, we stop at the Indian Himalayan Excursions bookstore, half trekking gear and half books, like an old curiosity shop. When we arrive, Kapil-ji, the genial bookseller with a salt-and-pepper beard, is busy showing a young couple how to pitch a tent and handing them sleeping bags on hire. We browse while he finishes.

The Other Reader finds a beautiful hardbound copy of The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin and a book on Marco Polo’s travels. I buy both for him, suffused with the singular pleasure of giving a fellow reader books he likes, even when he’s picked them out himself.

There’s a third book he finds by the till: Tracks by Robyn Davidson. It sits among piles of rare, out-of-print books Kapil-ji has collected from various places. When we take the books to Kapil-ji, he separates Tracks from the others.

“This one is not for sale, but you may borrow it,” he says.

He doesn’t write down the name of the book, he doesn’t charge us anything for borrowing it. Instead, like every time, he orders cups of tea and insists we drink it

.Then we drive down along the river Beas to Katrain, stopping at Jitters, a bookshop with a café which opened earlier this year. Inside is a proper coffee machine, a trendy menu, and the season’s bestsellers on display.

I see Elif Shafak’s latest book In One Brief Moment All Eternity—it’s a fictionalized life of Gustave Flaubert, best known for writing Madame Bovary. I read Madame Bovary as a teenager, and was much taken with the story of a restless, romantically deluded provincial wife whose longing for passion drives her into adultery.

Later I often wondered about the fairness of that portrait, since ambitious, energetic women in those days had no avenues open to them. Now I’m curious what Shafak will make of the man who wrote her. But there’s no way to browse through it—the book is bound in cellophane.

“People don’t really know how to treat books,” bookseller Shreshta says, a little apologetically.

We slip easily into conversation. She tells us she’s from Arunachal Pradesh, and we exchange notes on books. As we stand there chatting, I wonder: are booksellers more interesting than other people?

Shreshta tells us there is a library at the back, and we are welcome to browse there. A few locals have donated their collections and she promises us we will enjoy it. And we do. It’s wonderful, with books and squishy chairs, and plenty of light. Our friend picks a vegetarian cookbook.

I find two coffee table books on doing up interiors and settle down with them, squinting at sofas, since the new house still has exactly three chairs.

The Other Reader chooses a slim Orwell, Can Socialists Be Happy?, and has to buy it straightaway, since only books you’ve bought are allowed into the café. Fair enough, I suppose.

We drink coffee and hot chocolate and share an excellent blueberry cheesecake.

Shrestha is nervous, though. Next week she’s hosting her first book discussion, on Camus’s The Stranger, and she doesn’t know how many people will turn up. I think of how bookshop owners, authors and book club hosts everywhere share this fear. You set out the chairs, you put the kettle on, and you wait to see if readers arrive.

Kapil-ji has his tea and his untouchable pile. Shreshta has her squishy chairs and her cheesecake. Each pulls me back in different ways. I will be coming again–to return Tracks to Kapil-ji, to pick up a copy of the Elif Shafak book from Jitters Bookstore. What about you dear Reader, what’s your go-to place – a café, a bookstore, a bookstore café ?

Sonya Dutta Choudhury is a Mumbai-based journalist, Founder of Sonya’s Book Box, and a teacher of Storytelling in Business. Got a knot in your life, a dilemma at work, or a reading slump you can’t shake? Send your questions and book requests to sonyasbookbox@gmail.com, and she promises to give each one her most earnest consideration.