Reporting from a Delhi institution.

[Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi]

Here’s a citizen’s frank verdict on X about Delhi’s iconic Sunday Book Bazar—“This place is more of a hype… you see heaps of random books without any indexation done by the seller. If you have to buy real classics then you need to go to a reputed bookstore.”

Indeed, what will Delhi be without its reputed bookstores; the reputation earned after years of hard work and sustained excellence. And let’s face it, the open-air Sunday Book Bazar is messy, loaded with tens of thousands of used books that you might refuse to accept even if offered for free. Even so, the market held every week in Mahila Haat exhibition ground (near Delhi Gate metro station) offers a massive variety of used books, suiting all tastes. We help you by disclosing the market’s notable stalls. Starting with the following three. (Next volume in the series will showcase stalls stocking books in Hindi).

Farooq Ahmed’s stall
He (see photo) is currently the king* of the Sunday Book Bazar, having built the market’s most impressive collection of books on art and photography. Additionally, he consistently maintains an equally impressive stock of handsome old editions of classic fiction (such as Flaubert’s Madame Bovary) and classic non-fiction (such as Hiroshima by John Hersey). Some Sundays ago, his stall had half a dozen books on artist Georgia O’Keeffe, including a hard-to-find photo book on her by Life magazine photographer John Loengard. Last Sunday, the stall had a Sebastião Salgado hardbound, produced by the luxurious Taschen publisher. It was lying next to a David Hockney coffee table volume, which was lying close to the first edition UK hardbound of Nabokov’s Lolita. Some Sundays ago, a truly rare book from the 1950s was sighted at the stall, titled Old Delhi Slums. Bearing a forward by Jawaharlal Nehru, the book contained unconventional black-and-white photos of the Walled City.

Mahesh & Varun’s stall
This father-and-son duo keeps many genres of books, and frequently they also come up with stacks of long-vanished magazines. Recently, collector’s issues of America’s Life magazine surfaced at the stall, including one featuring President Kennedy’s assassination; another Life, dated September 15 1969, had “Ecstasy at Woodstock” on the cover.

Anant Kumar’s stall
His stall stocks hundreds of photo books, piled up into a mound, like a heap of veggie seller’s aloo-pyaz. All the books are priced at 100 rupees, irrespective of their literary or artistic standards. You have to dig out a lot of books to find true treasures, but you do find them. On a recent Sunday, following titles were sighted: Monet’s Years at Giverny, Horsemen of Afghanistan, and the super-bulky Complete Book Of Covers From The New Yorker: 1925-1989.

*The market’s former king was Surinder Kumar Dhawan, who would regularly bring forth incredible collection of books. He is no longer seen in the market. You see, the Book Bazar’s king keeps changing!