All the world at Sunday bazaar
For students and book-lovers alike, the Sunday book bazaar at Abids proves to be a boon
Heaps of books piled up with signboard which read, ‘Any book Rs.10’ or ‘Any book Rs.20’. Walk into Abids books bazaar, and one will encounter hundreds of such stalls.
The commercial area of Abids is productively used on Sundays, where shopkeeper selling books have been doing great business for more than six decades now. Indeed, this place is a bonanza for book lovers in the City. More importantly, this book bazaar is a boon to the lower middle class students who can’t afford fresh books priced exorbitantly.
Hyderabad hosts a second-hand books bazaar every Sunday. The commercial complex that houses Hollywood Shoes on the Abids main road is where it begins, and this continues to the GPO.
Just like any other books bazaar, book lovers can hunt for fiction, technology, non-fiction, management, classic, comic books, magazines, home décor, cook books, spirituality, self-development, and arts and crafts books, apart from a host of others. This market also has educational books.
“From KG to PG, we have everything,” says Ram Babu, who has his stall set up as early as 8am.
From youths to senior citizens, they all stride towards Abids for their pick. “Senior citizens come to buy old and language specific books, and youngsters come here for novels and old books,” says Azar Khan, a stall owner.
The USP of this market is classic and rare books. One can find the oldest of the oldest Tinkle or Readers Digest and that to just for just Rs.10.
In the new age of books being available on the iPad and tabs, there is still patronage for second-hand books sold on roadside, and they are a big hit.
One would often wonder the survival of this market against trends. But the community here strongly believes that theirs is a completely unique market and has no fear of competition.
“Ours is a very unique business and we have no fear from the big market. We sell only second-hand books and hence we have our own target audience,” says Mohammed Ghaus, who has been into this business since the last 30 years.
More than the day of the market, which is Sunday, shopkeepers work very hard from Monday to Saturday searching and accumulating these books. They collect books from various parts of the City and also procure books from Mumbai and Delhi.
“We work during the weekdays to collect the books. It’s a very tedious task, sorting and arranging the book is a bigger task,” claims Bhanu Murthi, shopkeeper.
Walking further down into the by-lanes gives the feeling of an all new world. The whole environment gives a feeling of late 80s or early 90s. The bazaar has a great collection of all genres of magazines, right from 1995 up to 2011.
Despite all these brownie points, book lovers need to build tremendous patience to look for that particularly elusive publication because there is really no order in the way the books are placed in most shops.
About the Author (Author Profile)
A dreamer, over enthusiastic with life and most often busy doing nothing..happy being busy and busy being happy….passionate about shopping, eating and a journalist occasionally.
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