The Bookseller

I kept looking at her until she disappeared from the scene and trailed off like a little train in the hills of Darjeeling. She had come to the store searching for a book written by an Indian writer. Though I did not boast of a big place with multiple helpers and a separate section for a café and restaurant at the back, I did not lack international best-sellers, national record-holding grossers and all-time classics. The Old Man And The Sea still lay

there on one of the selves. And my categorisation of genres, into fiction, non-fiction and geography, travel, sports and politics, among others, helped visitors locate any book they wanted to find, simply by navigating through the store.

I stole glances at her and saw her rummaging through the selves, picking up books by writers she liked. And every time she picked up a new book, there was this one ritual she did not fail to perform. She would read the cover page and turn it over, and then read the blurbs at the back of the book. She did all this, perhaps, to get the feel of any given book. She also went through a few pages inside; just to glance at the appreciatory comments the book in hand had received. It was still quite early for the bookstore to be full with visitors. It was only nine in the morning. A few foreigners could be seen ambling along the alleys in Thamel—camera in one hand and a travel map in the other. Most of them were probably sleeping at the local hotels that are scattered—in large numbers—in and around the tourist hub in the Capital. Almost all of them were possibly still struggling to get out of their alcoholic slumber from last night. And it was only in the afternoon, after the alcoholic stupor ended, that the foreigners teemed into my bookstore.

A soft instrumental piece played on the music player and the smell of incense, which I had just lit up a while ago—and which I almost routinely do upon opening the store in the morning—wafted into my nostrils as I was going through a national daily. As I prepared myself to go through an interview of the charismatic Chairman of the revolutionary party which had just joined mainstream politics after abandoning a decade-long conflict, a soft voice from a keen-voiced lady customer caught my attention.

“Excuse me,” she said, with a little smile on her face. I lifted

my eyes from the picture of

the firebrand leader with the prominent moustache to glance at the the sweet-looking lady and said, “Yes?”

“Do you have a book written by Rahul Bhattacharya, an Indian writer?”

“Mmm....Which one?”

“I don’t exactly remember its name, but it is a travelogue; a cricket travelogue.”

So the sweet creature watches cricket, I said to myself. I found it quite remarkable for a girl, probably in her mid-twenties, to be walking around the streets of Thamel in search of a book written on cricket. I could understand ‘modern-day’ girls watching the India-Pakistan cricket match in the world cup final, sitting together with cousins and family members, cheering at the boundaries or the fall of wickets, but I had never heard of, or come across, a girl who was on the lookout for a cricket travelogue.

“So, you watch cricket?” I countered her.

“I asked if you have that book.” She reiterated her query in a voice that was a little sterner, clearly an indication that the question I had just asked did not amuse her. Immediately, I realised that I was acting smart, and in an effort to amend my earlier mistake, I replied, “I guess the book you’re talking about is The Pundits from Pakistan, the one written on the sidelines of the historic India-Pakistan cricket series of 2004-05, is it not?”

It looked as if my considered and elaborate reply had done the trick. Her lips regained their smile.

“Yes, that was the one I was talking about. I always get confused with names.”

“Well, I have the book, but…”

“But.? Is there a problem?” she sounded a little anxious.

“Not a problem, actually.... The fact is, the book you are looking for is not in my store currently. I have it at home.” I kept my gaze on her to make sure that her facial expression did not change with my reply. She kept silent for a while, perhaps not knowing what to say, and finally blurted a curt “Oh”.

“It is not for sale, I can lend you the book if you want,” I said, partly to douse her apprehension, and partly to gauge her—in terms of what the prospect of her borrowing a book from someone who was practically a stranger to her was. First, she tried to put me under the impression that she was searching only for the

book casually, that she did not intend to read the book by borrowing it from someone she barely knew. I thought she was probably not too pleased with the idea of borrowing a book from a bookseller, someone who earns his bread and butter by selling books, not by showing generosity to customers.

“Okay....I have a win-win proposal for the both of us. I don’t want to borrow the book for nothing. What we can rather

do is, I will buy some other book, and you will lend me the book that I want. That way, I won’t be taking the book for free and you will have done some business as well.”

There was no way I could have denied the proposal, but I tried convincing her that she did not have to buy another one to read the one by Bhattacharya. But she would not agree, and I finally gave in. The next moment, she brought a book by one of our Nepali authors to the counter, bought it, and bade me good bye. As per our understanding, she would be visiting my store the next morning to borrow The Pundits from Pakistan. She left, and I kept my gaze at her until she quickly merged with the Thamel crowd. A broad smile lit up my face as I gestured toward the guy standing at the nearby tea shop for a cup of tea. tea shop for a cup of tea.

- Kumar Sharma