Another excerpt from

“Travels in Gujarat, Daman, and Diu” by Adam Yamey

To be published very soon!

We were in Ahmedabad when…

… we passed the now disused Indian Picture House, a cinema, and reached the bridge that carries Gandhi Road over Tankshal.

The road beneath the bridge is lined with booksellers’ stalls piled high with textbooks.

There are also bookshops around the bridge in yards leading off Tankshal Road. Outside their premises, there are tables which are overflowing with books, new and used. These precarious piles of books reminded me of my favourite bookshop in Bangalore, Mr Shanbag’s Premier Bookshop, which closed some years ago. In that great establishment, only the foolhardy customer would risk creating an avalanche of books by attempting to extricate a book from the piles of volumes reaching from the floor to the high ceiling.

We visited Mahajan Book Depot, where we had been told books in English were available. Its amiable owner, a descendant of the shop’s founder told us that his was the oldest bookstore in Ahmedabad. His great-grandfather established it in 1891. His stock of books in English was not great, but I found one, a history book, which I purchased.