Strand-ed in the World of Books

Online retail giants such as Flipkart and Amazon may be offering discounts in the range of 25-50% on books, but the Generation Z players are no match for the 63-year-old Strand Book Stall’s annual Book Festival—which offers a minimum discount of 40% and a maximum of…wait for it…80%!

The festival, running from January 5–22 from 10am-8pm everyday, is camped at Sunderbai Hall, near Churchgate Station, where bibliophiles can get lost in, literally, a sea of books with subjects ranging from art, architecture and interiors, philosophy, history, cookery, fiction, sport, classics, poetry, design, film, music, languages, romance, business and management, technology, biographies, comics and children’s books, among others.

“They have a very eclectic collection of books!” exclaimed Frank Braccia, 53, an educational consultant with Goldcrest High School, Vashi. Braccia had come to pick up books for his school’s library and was pleasantly startled by seeing some of the titles on display. “I was quite surprised to find some of the books available here, some which are not even currently publishing,” he said.

The Strand Book Festival is an annual 15-day event in January and has been attracting large crowds ever since its inception in 1998. “We get around 3000 visitors daily at the festival and sell close to 15,000 books per day,” said P.M. Shenvi, Manager, Strand Book Stall, Mumbai. “Our Bangalore branch also organizes a similar festival every October,” he added.

The festival attracts the usual suspects every year. Madhubala Ravitej, 42, has been coming to the festival for the last eight years. She is a member of the Trombay Club in Chembur’s BPCL colony and manages the library of the club. She selects “Rs. 15-20,000-worth of books” for the library, which is funded by the club. Children’s books filled a substantial portion of the three baskets-full of books she picked up at the festival. “Children read a lot! They are our most voracious readers,” said Ravitej, which is a heartening fact in today’s X-Box generation. “I’ve also picked up many cookery books for women and fiction for men,” she added.

C.S. Kavatkar, 75, is one of the oldest customers of Strand Book Stall. He has a personal collection of almost 3000 books and reads about 100 books in a year. “I was always a book lover,” said Kavatkar, a former employee of Abelin Polymers, Nashik. Kavatkar has been coming to Strand for the “last 50 years” and has read books from all genres—from science, to fiction, to art, to finance. He gives praise to Strand for having cultivated his reading habit. “Strand has got the best collection of books,” he remarked. “It’s a pity they don’t have a bigger place,” he added, referring to their store at Fort.

Giving Kavatkar some competition in book-reading was Prof. Rooshikumar Pandya, who packed two cartons-full of books. Pandya, 72, as described by his colleague Milind Nadkarni, is a management expert, trainer and consultant who reads “250-words-a-minute”. He is a regular visitor of the store and spoke highly of its staff. “They are very helpful! They know their books,” he said. Speaking of the variety of books available at the festival, Pandya described it as a “chaos”. “With so many options available, it’s so difficult to select!” he exclaimed with a grin.

It’s not just the old-timers who salivate at the festival. Kids were seen running around the children’s section, asking their more-than-obliging parents to buy them Enid Blyton and Spiderman, while their elder siblings were glued to Harry Potter, Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew.

The birth of Strand Book Stall is truly a remarkable story. It started as a small two-shelved kiosk at the now-defunct Strand Cinema in South Mumbai’s Apollo Bundar area. The man behind it all was a certain Padmashree T.N. Shanbhag, who was the first bookseller in the country to be given the distinction of Padmashree. Shanbhag passed away, at the age of 85, three years ago, but not before passing on the legacy to his two children—Arun Shanbhag and Vidya Virkar.

“My father was a post-Independence child who was fired by a passion of building a nation,” said Virkar. “He was an avid reader as a youngster and used to buy one Penguin (a publisher) a month, which was what he could afford. Once, a salesperson at a bookstore turned him out for browsing, which really humiliated him. This is when he decided to open a bookstall of his own where nobody would be turned away for browsing.”

In 1948, with just Rs. 450 in hand, the 23-year-old Shanbhag—who had studied Economics and History at St. Xaviers’ College, Mumbai—approached K.K. Modi, the owner of Strand Cinema with the idea of opening a small bookstall at the premises. Modi loved the idea and funded for two shelves himself, and the Strand Book Stall came into being. The cinema, at the time, was the only one in Mumbai which showed English films and was frequented by the crème de la crème of the city. “My father interacted with a lot of people, made a lot of friends, learned their likes and dislikes in books and made sure that his customers always got what they desired, for 20% less!” remarked Virkar.

Selling all titles at a minimum discount of 20% is a Strand policy since Day 1 and has been followed ever since. Explaining the reason behind the unique scheme, Virkar said, “Dad was a savvy businessman. He knew that he could not compete with bigger bookstores such as Thakkar or Taraporevala. This is why he decided to give a 20% discount on all purchases, keeping a negligible survival margin for himself.” “He was idealistic to the core,” added Arun Shanbhag. “He carried books on his head and walked from the stall to his home in Tardeo every single day.”

T.N. Shanbhag ran the small kiosk successfully for two decades. However, in 1952, Shanbhag felt he needed to buy a bigger place to sell books due to the increasing popularity and demand. Thus, the Strand Book Stall on Sir Pherozeshah Mehta Road in South Mumbai’s Fort area was born. Although the bookstall at Strand Cinema ceased to exit after the cinema shut down, the Strand Book Stall at Fort has been running successfully to date.

“Over the years, dad managed to educate three generations of India’s people,” said Virkar. “There are countless stories of children who grew up reading from Strand. Dad was very generous towards children. He often allowed them to take books home on approval—without asking for a single Rupee,” she said. “We have suffered thousands of Rupees of losses due to unreturned books,” said Arun. But that was how Shanbhag was. “He related with the children, who came back with a lot of gratitude as they grew older,” said Arun. “This is what a passionate bookseller should be like!” he remarked.

Explaining the inimitable modus operandi of Strand, Arun said, “We are not a charity, nor are we a pure business organization; we are a social organization. If we start making this a commercial enterprise, the whole brand would lose its charm. That is why Strand shines above the rest, because of the commitment to the reader.”

But sustaining such a large enterprise with such generous discounts must hardly be coming with any profits. Manager Shenvi elaborated: “We don’t bother how much we earn. We sell all the latest books at special prices—that’s our standard policy. We have to survive. But whatever we give (sell), we give genuinely. We don’t play any gimmicks.”

Gimmicks or not, the Strand Book Stall became such a big name as the years passed by that Virkar felt it was time they expanded to another city. Virkar started Strand Bangalore, in 1995—at the cusp of the IT boom. “The stall grew with IT, said Virkar. “Narayana Murthy, then-CEO, Infosys, soon became a regular customer. He used to come to the Bombay store as a kid. We were soon invited by Murthy to open stalls at Infosys campuses across the country. Today we have stalls at four Infosys campuses—Bangalore, Mysore, Hyderabad and Pune. We also received an offer from Wipro, Bangalore.” Strand now has seven stalls around the country. However, they do not wish to expand any further for the time being.

The annual Strand Book Festival was the brainchild of Virkar, who started it in Bangalore in 1995. “We wanted to expose more people to Strand. I wanted to bring in more titles at higher discounts. Initially, my dad was very sceptical about the whole idea. But I told him that thousands of people will be exposed to all your titles this way.” Eventually, Shanbhag agreed.

The festival started in Bangalore and grew “exponentially”. Three years later, in 1998, it debuted in Mumbai. Talking about the financial implications due to the huge discounts, Arun said, “We had to tighten our belts. But we knew that we were creating a lot of goodwill. We were not making a loss, but we were barely breaking even. Nonetheless, it did give us great joy!”

Today, according to Shenvi, renting the Sunderbai Hall for the festival costs Rs. 35-40,000-a-day. But Strand continues to hold fort. “Our turnover is more,” explained Shenvi. People wait throughout the year for the festival. Around five-six years back, The Times of India had reported long queues outside the gate for entry.”

However flabbergasting the model is, it works. Strand and their jaw-dropping discounts are here to stay. Online retailers such as Flipkart, who offer luxuries such as free door-to-door delivery, are fast growing in popularity. But as far as Team Strand is concerned, they will last the rise of the machines, so to say. Shenvi reiterated the Shanbhags’ mantra, “We are an institution, not a commercial enterprise.” He added, “We have thousands of well-wishers who will always stand up for us in times of need.”

Branding the online retailers as “short-sighted”, Shenvi said, “They store in bulk, which is why they can offer whatever discounts they are offering. They can afford to lose crores, but we can’t.” Delivering the knock-out punch, he said, “Still, we have better prices than all online stores.”

Prasad Kamath, 35, an IT security consultant and bibliophile, concurs with Shenvi. “I guess it all depends on what kind of a person you are. For me, the touch and feel of the book, the smell of the pages and browsing through the book before buying is very important. An online store cannot provide me that facility.” He added, “Stores such as Strand are like a candy shop for a kid, where you can just go berserk. That feeling is irreplaceable.”

The Strand Book Festival closes doors on Sunday at 8pm for the last time this year. Rush to the candy shop, kids!