Bibliophiles’ Sunday rendezvous

Weekly old book market survives seven decades of changing times

LAHORE:

A Sunday bazaar of old books that has been set up for the past seven decades on the footpath of Anarkali market continues to attract citizens regularly despite the general perception of decreasing public interest in reading books.

The market is considered to be a preserver of old and rare books written on historical, literary, political and social topics.

The Anarkali Book Bazaar, in front of Pak Tea House, is now 70 years old. On the footpaths of a small road of 300 metres, hundreds of stalls are set up on both sides. Apart from political, social, literary and religious books, all kinds of children's books in English and Urdu are available at very cheap prices. Some books sold in the weekly market are not available anywhere else in the country.

The oldest bookseller of the market, Rana Asghar told The Express Tribune the bazaar had been set up at the spot on Sundays for the past 70 years. He is 60 years old and has been selling books there for the past 45 years.

Some rare books were also offered for sale at the stalls.

Rana Asghar said the trend of reading books had definitely decreased due to internet and modern information technology but the importance of books was still there.

The biggest source of old books is scrapyards. Sometimes good English books are also obtained from shipping containers brought from abroad.

Another bookseller, Qaiser, said he had been selling books in the makeshift market for 30 years. There was a time when computer and English books were in high demand.

He said he earlier used to set up his stall along the road but now displayed the books in a street. The vendors sell books at the spot because the market is closed on Sundays. Another shopkeeper, Habib, said the condition of old books was improved by binding them after buying them from the Urdu Bazaar at a low price. This makes possible their sale at a higher price. He said the number of visitors had not decreased but they were reluctant to buy their favorite books due to the ongoing spate of inflation.

Farooq Yusuf, who was visiting the bazaar along with his children, said the trend of reading books had significantly decreased due to the availability of internet but he comes to the bazaar with his children every Sunday and each of them has a mini-library.

A schoolteacher, Samreen, said she regularly bought books from the market because of their low prices. Students Imran Qazi, Ameer Hamza, Ali Nawaz and Fayaz Rafiq said inflation had made new books unaffordable so they bought old books for studying.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, September 5^th, 2022.