A bookshop turns its last page

A bookshop turns its last page



Bangalore: After serving discerning airline passengers for over 40 years, Sankars bookshop at HAL Airport will down its shutters on Friday. It has not been allowed to move to the Bengaluru International Airport which opens on Saturday.

Writer-director Girish Karnad buys his books here; Infosys chief N.R. Narayana Murthy always drops in and picks up a recent title or two whenever he travels by air. And management guru C.K. Prahalad buys many of his Indian books — though not his own — when he passes through Bangalore.
Eclectic selection

An airport bookshop has a special attraction for book lovers who travel a lot. It is the most convenient way of shopping for books. Sankars has a special place in the hearts and minds of book-loving air travellers. It is said to be India’s finest airport bookshop — carrying a range of eclectic current reading that few larger city shops have matched.

N. Sankaran, the proprietor who runs the chain in Bangalore, Pune, Kochi, Ahmedabad, Goa and Hyderabad, told The Hindu that when he first set up the bookshop in the airport, there were just a couple of flights every day, mostly DC3 Dakotas and Avros. “We had a daily turnover of Rs. 100 or so, because most books cost Re. 1 or Rs. 2.”

Mr. Sankaran said that while he had been assured by the airport authorities that he would be able to move to the new airport, those in charge of the new dispensation finally allotted the travelling requisites store to another agency. “It is just a bookshop,” Mr. Sankaran said. “They said they had no room for that and wanted a store with a wider range.”
Uncanny knack

Regulars who have passed through the domestic side of Bangalore’s airport for decades might disagree. Sankars was more than a shop or store; it was a unique cultural service. Mr. Sankaran’s brother, Mani, who has been a familiar face at the bookshop for many years, had an uncanny knack of knowing what passengers wanted.

Being in Bangalore, the shop stocked every management and IT industry-related title Indian or foreign, the very day it was released. In many cases, global bestsellers reached its shelves, direct from air consignments, ahead of city shops. This correspondent has witnessed the rapport that Mr. Mani had with regulars. “Sorry sir, the book sold out last night. But I will have a copy for you to pick up when you return from Delhi tomorrow,” he would say.

Foreign travellers, who forgot a cellphone in their hotel or had any petty emergency felt free to entrust the matter to Mr. Mani before they left. He served as the unofficial point of contact for nameless thousands.

Books on self-help, management, tourism and Indian culture sold well at times but Sankars was the place for that rare title no one cared to stock.

When the new airport opens , it will be a new era, but it will leave a nostalgic vacuum in the airport experience for thousands of book-loving passengers.