The death of a book bazaar

Those in the know rarely came to the Daryaganj Sunday book bazaar (also known by its Hindi title of 'Patri Kitab Bazaar') with the hope of finding a specific book. This is because of the unlimited variety of used books, and the disorderliness in the way they were displayed. Essentially, books happened to you here, as you walked, and, as I came to understand, walking could be an underrated form of creative resistance. While on the streets, readers and booksellers navigated their way through the book bazaar, bypassing the strict contours of a map of Daryaganj,creating a private, singular narrative of their experience of the city, amidst myriad others. Through individual movement, a walker (book buyer as well as book seller) subtly defied the strategic grids of the city, as he or she 'found' books. There were numerous ways to enter the book bazaar, and likewise, to exit. You could, in fact, simultaneously be inside the street market, and not. Nevertheless, you would always be in proximity of it.

There are several origin stories about the Daryaganj book bazaar, located in Old Delhi (or Shahjanabad, as it was known when the city was founded). The now relocated market is said to have been in operation since the Mughal Empire. Historian Sohail Hashmi says that Akbarabadi Begum, one of Shahjahan's wives, built this market in its earliest form. Several historical maps of Delhi show the existence of 'Faiz Bazaar' in this area. The name, Daryaganj, itself means 'a market across a river', where 'Darya' refers to a river (here, the river Yamuna) and 'Ganj' refers to a site where trade is conducted. It was not always the same product that was traded here; Daryaganj only became synonymous with the sale of used, rare, pirated books in the 1960s. According to locals, Daryaganj started as a consumer goods market, set up adjacent to the walls between Subhash Park and Kasturba Gandhi Hospital. There were vinyl records and hand-mounted record players, radios, transistors, mechanical goods, medical goods and used clothes; books too found their place. After a few minor relocations not significantly far away from the lanes of Daryaganj, a few booksellers moved to the now absent 'Lohe ka Pul' (Iron Bridge), near Golcha Cinema, from where the street market began to expand. Before its recent relocation to a nearby site by the name of Mahila Haat, the bazaar extended till Delite Cinema Hall. The structure of the market appeared like a long 'L', with books stacked on the sidewalks of Netaji Subhash Marg and Asaf Ali Road, and more than 250 vendors.