Bengaluru, KARNATAKA :

Bengaluru :

Come December-end, it is curtains for Frazer Town’s lending library Mecca Book House, which for more than 40 years was a favourite haunt for women, school children and even politicians hooked to bestsellers.

My school days at St Joseph’s Indian High School are filled with memories of me running to my father’s library after classes. The fragrance of books filled Mecca Book House, which used to be packed with readers and book borrowers. Former chief minister Veerendra Patil used to be one of them on many occasions.

For the past 37 years, my daily routine consisted of starting from home to the shop at 10 am, lunch at 1.30 pm and back to my books from 4 pm to nine in the night. But all good things have to end and that applies to my business as well. From January 1, it is going to change forever and I am unsure of how to go about it.

Childhood days

I remember the good old Bangalore days when we lived in our large family home on Infantry Road. We were 12 children and I was the eldest. My father Abdul Hameed Sait was a voracious reader and was always surrounded by books at home. I remember waking up in the middle of the night to see my old man burning the midnight oil. It wasn’t a surprise when he entered a trade that involved books, a circulating library. Thus was born Mecca Book House and a fancy store attached to it at China Bazaar, now Commercial Street, in the summer of 1975. He worked out of a small shop belonging to my grandmother that he rented for Rs 50 a month.

We became famous among Bangaloreans for our stock of Mills and Boons, John Grishams, James Pattersons and Frederick Forsyths, and were extremely popular among women. Our service got us a loving and loyal clientele.

Moving out

My work with the bookshop began in 1980 after I quit my sales job at a garment store. In 1987 we moved out of Commercial Street to set up shop in Cox Town, this time as an exclusive lending library. We became an inseparable and integral part of the Cantonment area with many book lovers, especially from the Anglo-Indian community, frequenting our shop.

Those were the good old days when people were hooked to books and would spend hours in our small shop and borrow bestsellers for a nominal fee. Many often landed with children for whom we had an exclusive kids section. Once a schoolgirl borrowed 15 books but returned them a decade later to rekindle ties with us and we were happy to see her. Customers were family.

We moved yet again in 2010 to the present location on MM Road in Fraser Town after the earlier structure was sold. But customers kept coming for books. My large brown registers have recorded details of every customer who has visited right from the 1980s. I still write down every detail in the register.

Internet and smartphones turned villain and the reading habit deteriorated. Business started to dip, but you don’t give up. Book business is an addiction but it can be punishing sometimes. We are forced to wind up as my landlady wants the place and not because I want to get beaten down by the interne age. I did try to shift the shop but am unable to do so due to skyrocketing rents and steep advances.

The word of the closure has spread and some have trouble accepting that Mecca Book House, which has been part of their lives for 42 years from its Commercial Street days, will soon be history. Of the 5,500 plus books, I managed to sell 3,500 and I’m waiting for the rest to be sold before I bid adieu to my 100sqft workplace.

I have no choice but to wind up at the age of 65. But I am content having run a lending bookstore since 1980, which gave me a lot of friends, good health and importantly the opportunity to read some of the bestselling novels from across the globe.
Ahmed is the owner of Mecca Book House

As told to Petlee Peter
(In this column, people record their impressions of Bengaluru)

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News> City News> Bangalore  News / by Petlee Peter / TNN / December 04th, 2017