‘I think happiness comes without cost’

An interview with Anuj Bahri

Illustration by Shyamli Singbal

The bookstore is a site of the most enduring relationships with literature, and one such beacon of the written word is Bahrisons. It was set up by Balraj Bahri Malhotra, who came to Delhi during Partition and started a small bookshop in Khan Market in 1953. Though Bahri Sahib, as he was fondly known, is no more, his son Anuj has been running the store for decades, and Bahrisons has expanded into one of India’s most recognisable and respected bookstore chains. 

The store turned seventy earlier this month, and now has 9 other outlets across the NCR, Kolkata and Chandigarh. As part of the anniversary, we decided to do an interview with the man behind the brand.

Over Zoom a few days ago, I spoke to him about bookselling, the publishing world, and more.   

So, I have just a few questions in terms of being a bookseller in India. We can talk back and forth from the conception of the bookstore and see how it flows. 

It’s a very long history! Seventy years. So I hope you have time! 

I do. So to begin with, what would you say have been the biggest challenges and the greatest achievements from this long period of running Bahrisons?

There are no challenges! You see, the moment you opt to work in our bookstore, the monetary compensation is the least. So as long as you can adjust your mind to a lower bracket of monetary compensation, I think it’s smooth sailing. Because there is so much respect in this trade, that sometimes it overshadows the financial aspect, so I think that is a plus point and motivation, because people actually give you the respect due for being a book seller. 

In terms of the biggest achievements or the most memorable moments for you over the years, what were a few that stand out to you? 

There are so many, but I think the memory of the release of my daughter's first book was the biggest achievement for me. It’s not exactly tied to the store, but my daughter, Aanchal Malhotra, writes about Partition, oral history and so on, and she has now written two books and a novel. She wasn’t ever involved with the bookstore but we are a family business, and a while ago she helped me with the lit agency we run. But now she is a full time writer, and that was a very proud moment, a moment of achievement because it feels like my job as a parent is fulfilled. 

That’s very heartwarming. And in terms of the store itself, how difficult was expanding and what were the things that have changed over the years? What were the toughest or happiest moments? 

You know, it’s not tough at all to do a bookstore, because it’s something I really enjoy. When we open a new store or have been lucky enough to expand, it’s very exciting for me, because there is a new market, a new challenge. I have a great team with me and that’s what inspires me. 

There was a Scroll piece I really enjoyed in which there was a history of the development of the store, and I was wondering who the key people were behind the Bahrisons brand. 

At the core it’s me and my wife Rajni. My parents are no more and my sisters are not in the business with me, so the two of us play the pivotal role. But of course from the time my father began the first store to now there have been many people involved in some way.

Do you still go to the store every day or is it more of a managerial sort of role now?

You know, I’m a pretty hands on guy. I go to one store in Delhi every day in the morning and then I go to the office, and then I come to our Khan market store post three o'clock usually. So every day I’m at Khan Market and at one of the other stores also. 

The bookstore business, especially if you're not a big chain or conglomerate, can be quite challenging. How do you think you have managed to kind of fend that off?

You  see, if you keep your needs low, you’ll always be able to profit. The problem comes if you want to soar in the sky. But if you’re grounded and your needs are limited and you want to do good work, I think happiness comes without cost. We don’t believe in investing without a clear plan, and we also have other aspects like the lit agency which are helpful in building the ecosystem. 

Having been involved in this world from when the store started to now, where it's quite established, what are the big changes you see in the literary world and in publishing or bookselling?

I think the big change that has come in is that Hindi has become accepted and is being read more. Of course it’s one of the main languages of India and there's a lot of new publishers which is very positive. A lot of the Hindi works that should be out there in the world are now being translated, so this is an exciting 10 years for India. I think the local languages are going to have more prominence and will be accepted in the English language world too, so that will have a larger platform which I think is a very positive sign. So much so that in all our stores, we have now added a Hindi section. Plus at the store that we have in Chandigarh, we have a Punjabi section and the store we have in Calcutta we have a Bangla section as well. I think there is so much writing available over there in local languages, Marathi, Gujarati, Kannada, Bengali, etc. I think those are going to explode and that’s a big positive since there’s so much writing out there. 

In terms of changes with sort of the landscape or the kind of books that are popular or less popular over the years is there something else you've noticed in terms of what seems to be doing well?

I think over the course of the last three years, what I’ve seen is that a lot more young people are very interested in religion, self-help and especially spirituality. I would say more than self-help or religion, it’s spirituality. 

You know, it’s the lack of knowledge from the older generation as families get split up. My father and grandfather transferred a lot of oral knowledge to me, which helped me to have broad horizons and general knowledge and beliefs. But today everyone is so busy they barely pass on that information. Things like basic classics - the Bhagavad Gita, Crime and Punishment, Little Women - the young have so much curiosity to know more because they haven’t been exposed to it as much, they haven’t had time or they haven’t read it, they’ve always been on the phone. 

Speaking of phones, the next thing I wanted to ask was the way you’ve been affected by the digitalisation of things, the way many bookstores have been hurt by everybody buying online. How do you deal with that impact or feel about that in relation to the business?

I think technology has grown so much across the world, and India is also at par in many ways or not far behind, with new ways of buying, writing, podcasts, and so on. 

Something that is very encouraging along with this, is that internationally, the reading habit overall has increased by about 15 to 16% and in India it’s at a high of over 30%. The average age of the new reader is lower than before, so hopefully that means they will be reading for many years. That makes me positive about the future. 

Of course, we have had a website for the last twenty years but the latest thing we’re doing now is working with Amazon - putting up a new storefront with Amazon that should be live in the next month or so. It’s a large inventory of almost 100,000 titles online, so instead of all the books being available on Amazon, we’ll have a dedicated storefront where you can browse through the Bahrisons inventory on that platform, which is a new way of reaching people. 

Exciting. I think reading going up has been well-documented in recent years, but some complain that while overall reading is going up, certain categories like spiritually or business are much more prominent than new ‘literature’. Do you find that to be true? 

No, no, no. I’ve got an author at home to prove that novels are still selling very well! How can I say that people are not reading literature then? I think people just want a narrative. In fact, it’s not even business or spirituality, but books with a narrative that can help people, that are actually doing better than a category like ‘business’. If you take, for example, Atomic Habits, it’s a narrative about the self but it will help you do better business as well. So things like that are doing much better because it’s approached through a human life and that will take your business forward. In fact, people aren’t as interested in Kottler or whoever but want to be talked to directly. 

Another question I wanted to touch upon was future plans for the store in terms of expansion or anything else? 

First and foremost we are a family business, so no matter how many stores we open it will be family-run so we will go at our own pace. I don’t believe in investing in losses or going into debt or not caring about profit, we only open a store where there’s an opportunity and where we feel there will be returns. I am always happy to expand if a store will make money, but then also the family is very focused on imparting knowledge and expanding the field of writing. As long as there’s an opportunity, we will always look at it but these are considerations we have. 

As someone from Bombay, I’ve felt that the bookstore scene in the city has dwindled so much in recent decades. So I wanted to ask if that’s something you’ve considered or a reason why you don’t have a Bahrisons there yet?

I think that’s a Bombay problem more than a books or Bahrisons problem. I’ll tell you why - Mumbaikars are not big readers and the rents and economics are very challenging. Everybody wants to be a writer or to give gyaan to others in Bombay, which is not a good environment for a store. 

In spite of Marathi writing being so excellent and having such a big legacy, Mumbai is too focused on capital, finance, business and not on supporting writing more broadly. I think mainly even the writers coming out of Bombay, they write very well about fantasy, mythology, things like Amish and Ashwin Sanghi, but these are consumed across the country. Same thing with Marathi writing, there are some of the best books in the country but they all come to Delhi to be translated and published. 

Then, of course, Bombay is too expensive. It’s not as easy to find staff at the price points we operate at because in Bombay they will have to commute three hours to afford anything on a bookstore salary. 

I know you mentioned your daughter’s book, but I was wondering if there were other launches or books over the years that hold special significance for you and the store?

There are so, so many. Frankly, every week there’s a new book coming out, a launch, a signing, and all of them are dear to me. Just a few days ago, Ram Guha was signing some books at the store and it was such fun. We were chatting over coffee and it’s always a great moment because he has often come to buy his own books at our store. And so many writers we admire are often just browsing so that is really fulfilling to me. 

We were also thinking of a storytelling project for children’s books, or workshops over the weekend, there are so many things still to do in order to encourage more people to read, in order to spread more knowledge and experiment and see how things go. 

***

Anuj Bahri joined the legendary Bahrisons in 1979 under the tutorship of Balraj Bahri. In addition to being a bookseller, he added a small publishing division (Tara Press) to the existing line of business, and has also been running the Red Ink Literary Agency for over a decade. 

Abhay Puri is a writer and the founding editor of Hammock Magazine.