The souvenir of the old CP. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Everything—except the fruits, the cookies, the protein chocolates and the wasabi peas—looks straight out of a time warp. The wood panelling, the display cabinets, even the floor, are as old as the store, circa 1935. The only major concession to modernity at The Oriental Fruit Mart in E-block, Connaught Place (CP), was the introduction of automatic sliding door in 2011. This CP store is the stuff heritage is made of. Any CP aficionados will tell you how difficult is to keep pace with the furiously evolving colonial-era district. This world of stately white columns and louvred windows has become a muddle of restaurants, pubs and cafés. Feel free to accuse

The new boss. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Hennes and Mauritz have moved into New Book Depot and ED Galgotia & Sons Booksellers. On August 25 2016, the Swedish clothing multinational H&M opened its largest gleaming outlet in Delhi in that very white-washed corner of D-block in Connaught Place that used to house the aforementioned bookstores, both of which were tucked next to each other, and had shut down one after the other. The New Book Depot, famous for its collection of Penguin classics, was started by a French couple in 1925. It shut shop in 2012. Its last owner, Rakesh Chandra, was famous for his fierce individuality. He occasionally got into tiffs with customers who showed “disrespect” to his

The English abroad. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] It is a walking distance from Shakespeare and Company and refreshingly different from that touristy bookstore manned by cold attendants. The Abbey Bookshop in Paris’s Latin Quarter is crammed with lovely new and used books. Many paperbacks are also piled up outside the door. The blue-eyed founder and owner, Brian Spence, looks like Leo Tolstoy. A Canadian émigré, he flashes a welcoming smile if you happen to look at him. He also offers free coffee, which is especially helpful to booklovers with not enough Euros for a coffee in a café. The bookstore is steeped in mood. The tiled floor is cracked in places, the paint on the roof peels off here and

The power and the glory. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] It is exactly what a sprightly 60-year-old should be—a blend of gravitas and energy. The Ashok hotel in New Delhi’s Chanakyapuri area, which celebrates its 60th anniversary in October 2016, is still the crown jewel of the India Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC). That same month, the ITDC will celebrate its golden jubilee. Talk of disinvestment peppers the conversation around the Ashok in its landmark year. However, it may not be easy to dispose of. Right now, as we stand there trying to absorb the spirit of India’s first state-owned five-star hotel, the Ashok is unperturbed, its stateliness still recalling the time when prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru rode on horseback around its premises, paying

The hotel of The God of Small Things. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] “Room numbers 313 and 327,” The man at the reception desk said. “Non-air-conditioned. Twin beds. Lift is closed for repair.” This is not true. Lift is operational and there are no rooms with numbers 313 and 327. The Delhi Walla is in the lobby of Hotel Sealord on Marine Drive, Cochin. You may also visit this hotel in The God of Small Things, a novel that will complete 20 years in 2017. The opening lines of this dispatch, in fact, is from that book. Its paperback edition is in my hands. The hotel appears as Sea Queen in the novel. Its author, Arundhati Roy, who spent her childhood in a

Not just another bookshop. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Historian Romila Thapar has visited this old family run bookshop in Khan Market. Author Gita Mehta talked of it in her book Snakes And Ladders: Glimpses Of Modern India. Late poet Kamala Das would walk down to this shop in the evenings from her home in nearby Rabindra Nagar. This is Faqir Chand and Sons, a mom-and-pop shop around the corner. Drop by any afternoon and you’ll see Mamta Marwah and her husband, Anup Kumar, seated behind the counter. The bookshop is like an extension of their home. A Thermos containing ginger chai is on the desk, along with a box of home-made namak-paare. The shop has only two staffers—Suresh Yadav, who

Better than Shakespeare & Company. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] No, not Shakespeare & Company. The best bookstore in Paris for readers in English is actually Librairie Galignani. Founded in 1801, it is the oldest English-language bookstore in Europe outside England. To be sure, Shakespeare & Company is a very good bookstore. Situated just across the road from the great Notre Dame, it has chandeliers, beds, sofas, tourists and a great selection of first-hand books (the marvelous-looking used books upstairs are not for sale). But Galignani, which is situated close to the Louvre museum—on Rue de Rivoli— has a more extensive selection. And unlike Shakespeare & Company, it hasn’t got a single trash. Every single book in the dark-wood shelves

The real Berkeley. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The silence is so intense that one’s own thoughts feel like noise. The Delhi Walla is at the Berkeley Books of Paris, one of the best secondhand English language bookstores in the French capital. Berkeley is a minute-long walk away from San Francisco, another absorbing English-language secondhand bookstore. The two landmarks are near the historic Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe in the heart of Paris. Both shops are dangerous—you could spend an entire day in either of them buying scores of books you never thought existed but on spotting them you realized you have been looking for them all your life. But it’s Berkeley with its cool balmy lights, old typewriters and a great reading

Italy's unique bookshop. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] It was very curious. The other day the Italian Jewish newspaper Pagine Ebraiche ran a special issue on the 500th anniversary of Venice's ancient Jewish district, the world's first ghetto. The 12-page supplement had no mention of Libreria Alef. The bookshop's staffers were disappointed yet again. Opened in 2006, the important landmark is almost never mentioned in any newspaper feature on the ghetto. This is puzzling because Libreria Alef is the only bookstore in Italy devoted exclusively to Judaism, which means that it stocks books written for or by the Jews--this explains the high visibility of Woody Allen in the shelves. According to bookstore’s manager, Ugo Casarin, Rome used to have a Jewish bookshop,

The last man standing. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] This frail white-haired man is among the last of his kind in Venice. Emilio Piacentini is a wood-carver in the city’s ancient Jewish ghetto, which is observing its 500th anniversary this year. The Delhi Walla meets him one afternoon inside his deliciously shabby shop—it is cluttered with all sorts of wood things, from mirror frames to cupboards to wooden chandeliers. In his late 70s, Mr Piacentini is among the half-a-dozen aging woodcarvers left in the city, and the only one in the ghetto. He started the business 40 years ago. Before that this used to be a horsemeat shop. The shop is as scenic as the area’s synagogues and looks