“I could have never placed a book with that title in the display window of my shop ten years
ago.” A premier book seller of Connaught Place sorry Rajiv Chowk told me after I finished
the book signing ceremony. He had come himself to show me where my book was being
displayed.

“What would have happened ten years ago?” I asked him as we posed for a photograph.
“I can’t say but it would have been unthinkable for any reputed book seller to do so. I can tell
you a story. At that time, a book by Ayan Hirsi Ali had been published called ‘The Infidel’. A
worldwide bestseller I had put it in the display window at the same place where your book is
lying right now. Two men had come and told me to take the book off the window saying it
would hurt people’s sensibilities. Fearing protests, I had done so.”
“Would you say it is a sign of the changing times that now you can it do it without fear?” I
asked.

“Of course, I would say that.” He nodded. “The very fact it has been published, has not got
banned and a book seller can display it and no one is protesting a sign of the changing times
in our country.”

He told me they were booksellers for three generations. His grandfather came from Lahore
and opened the bookstore in 1936. “He used to tell me that during the last days of the Raj,
there were strict orders to not display revolutionary books. Once his grandfather had got
some Western and Bandit books from America. A British magistrate had ordered him to take
them off so that Indians don’t get ideas to shoot with guns and guns do not become normal in
the society.”

The British also never wanted Indians to develop a habit of writing or reading fiction as that
helps them develop empathy. Only fiction that demeaned the Indian culture, their civilization
was allowed. It was a subtle and powerful message that went through and lead to the
destruction of reading habit in Indians of fiction.

After that he told me, “For seventy years the book reading culture remained frozen.
Government after government didn’t want any change. During that period, only certain
themes, certain genre were allowed. What was not allowed was to describe the persecution or
slavery that Indians had experienced.”

“I have read your book,” he said, “the title caught my attention. It has a nationalist theme and
describes the injustice towards Indians in a historical sense. I am glad that Garuda Prakashan decided to publish it.”
“It is a book of courage and they didn’t give in,” I added, “despite the fact that their reviewer
had advised them that Indian society may not be ready for such a book and they are taking a
risk by doing that.”

“Writing about truth and risk taking go hand in hand,” my colleague from Garuda had told
me when I had asked him. “The writing of courage is needed in India whose time has come
we believe,” he had said. “If you authors are taking the first step, we will take the second one.
Powerful words, they have to take a long time to emerge from the ruins of history in which
the truth of our people lies buried and never found a voice.”

Book sellers can be a storehouse of wisdom about people’s behavior, societal change and
evolution of people. Unlike other shopkeepers they are knowledgeable, read a lot and take their profession personally. A second bookseller for book signing gave me an insight about
my book that I hadn’t known about.

“Indians and foreigners behave differently when they go to buy a book. Indians ask about a
book from shopkeeper and rarely decide on their own whether they should buy a particular
title or not. They ask me about it and if I recommend they take it without blinking the eye.
They are not confident of making a judgement of their own. I remember my grandfather
telling me the British coming in his shop and buying on their own and the Indians asking for
which books are the British reading. This behavior between Whites and Browns hasn’t
changed in the last seventy years. A foreigner, that is a White person even today when he
enters my shop,” he added, “would ask me for the particular section of the bookstore he
wants to see and then would prefer to be left by himself. He doesn’t want to be disturbed with
by me.”

A third book seller whom I went to, gave me an advice about my cover page. “It is not for
Indian audiences. It is subtle and subliminal. Won’t sell in India. Who made it?” he asked.
“Have you noticed the titles of other books that sell here? Most of the titles have large fonts,
one that almost covers the entire page. Indian buyers don’t understand subtleties. No offense
meant to you but have a glossy cover with large letters to attract the audience.”
“I wanted a minimal design for my book cover,” I added somewhat defensively.
“It won’t work in India. Will take another fifty years for audience to appreciate that. Indian
audiences will not bend down to read. They want to be pushed to buy a book. They ask the
same question as if trying to convince themselves they are not making a mistake in buying it.
Unlike the Whites, we are very unsure of ourselves as a race and making a decision.

“If a book has been recommended by White people, it always sell in India. Sad but true. Your
book has been recommended by so many Whites. You should advertise it more to attract
audiences,” he advised.

How will we ever fight this obsession with White being the ultimate yardstick and raise our
self esteem, I wonder.

“Books shape our individual and national character. Bookstores are the soul of a national
identity and booksellers carry that legacy. We need books that can fill up the huge void left
by our colonial legacy and slavery and later by the falsehood that tried to cover it from us. In
the last seven years, there is an openness coming about because of questions raised by people.
Like a breath of fresh air it feels as if ten Augean stables are being washed away, the stink of
many centuries. The stench may be said to receding.

I wish that more titles that make us understand our roots, themes that beckon us to retrieve
that find a language that has not been written or spoken about. As Upanishads say let noble
ideas come to us from every side. Today, I pray that ideas even if called radical may come
from all sides, break our inner voids and create a new intellectual space for all Indians so that
one of the last of the chains imposed by slavery may break.

PS: This article could not have been possible without the support of Garuda Prakashan.