Frederick Noronha
Goa has a high literacy rate – on paper. We often boast about it. But, in reality, we seem to be quite an illiterate society. Did you see much concern over bookshops, for authors, for the process that sparks creativity and promotes knowledge? In the past few days, another bookshop died in Goa. But who cares, after all, it’s not
a nightclub…
A brief online announcement simply said: “People Tree Goa [is] closing down. Farewell to Villa Cursino.” The pandemic, some official policies perhaps, and the wider society’s we-need-it-but-someone-else-has-to-do-the-work approaches have all taken its toll.
This is not the first bookshop to be hit, now or even pre-pandemic. One prominent outlet at Candolim downed its shutters. Sometime earlier, a bookshop run out of a Panaji hotel announced a distress sale of its books just before shutting operations. Others complain about having to face perennial financial pressures. A modest Mapusa outlet in the market areas which made brisk sales mainly of cookery books sells in limited numbers today. Some bookshops have scaled down and reinvented themselves into being stationery shops while displaying a few titles for the sake of appearances.
The pandemic might have been the proverbial last straw. But the death of the book in our society is a symptom of an uncaring society, one which has little concern for things that matter, for the transmission of knowledge and information that could help us understand ourselves, the world, and face the challenges of
uncertain times.
Goa has only a limited number of bookstores. Their spread is not very even, too. Panaji and Margao may offer options, but not so the other places.
Mapusa is still the home to the once widely-noticed Other India Bookstore, but times have changed. It is nowhere like the landmark it once was, then drawing so many mail-order clientele from across India, and even beyond. It pioneered mail-order book sales in the mid-to-late 1980s, when even Amazon.com was still only a distant dream. On Fridays, this was a must-visit landmark, for even alternative-ish tourists to drop in to during their visit the colourful market town and its Friday bazaar. It was listed and written about in popular guidebooks too. But that was then!
Large towns like Vasco have few options too. Less said about the other parts of scattered Goa the better. This is the intellectually-starved setting our boastful State is growing up in.
Books have a lot of fair-weather friends. In good times, or if there’s a surplus to hand over, the numbers won’t be short. When it comes to state-sponsored awards, there are long lists of those who feel they deserve it. Even writers or authors sometimes act as if the crisis in books is not a problem for them to worry about. But, who cares for really promoting something as critical as the page that holds knowledge.
Bookshops play a crucial role. Not all the pressures they face can be judged only by the number of closures among their ranks. Some simply languish and bleed, financially and in other ways. The pandemic has been bad on them. But so has demonetisation, GST (which hiked printing costs), unhelpful policies towards books nationwide, or an insensitive approach towards the sector in our state. One can see the mood change among booksellers who were once upbeat towards having uncertainty stare in the face.
In Goa, perhaps more than in our neighbouring states, we see books almost as a superfluous and non-essential sector. Janta curfews, lockdowns, curfews by whatever names have discouraged buyers. Book launches have, understandably, become rare. To complicate the situation, government support is not only minimal to non-existent, and policies that were working well have sometimes been replaced by others that don’t! For example, pre-publication support to authors, now no longer available, is one case in point.
People Tree, also called 6 Assagao (from its house number, right on the main road just at the start of the village) was a nice place in more ways than one. Set up by the talented artist Orijit Sen and Gurpreet Sidhu, who were more recently assisted by Chan and Nilankur, this place had the right vibes, and approach, to bookselling.
Like some other bookshops in Goa, they too seemed to understand the reader’s psyche. Along with their new books, they had a decent selection of second-hand books. Their cultural, social, book and activist discussions held on Mondays lent a good backdrop to the bookshop. Everyone there seemed to show a real concern for books, and not just for the financial side of the trade. The outlet also gave the genuine impression of wanting to give back to the local society within which they were working within. Their demise is therefore all the more saddening.
Society, not just booksellers, and publishers, has to give serious thought to where its knowledge and information dissemination systems are headed. Some of these issues are not pandemic-related alone but relate to the poor performance of official institutions and a lack of vision or concern by
wider society.
There are a few outlets for books standing and fighting the good fight. Broadway in Panaji and Golden Heart in Margao (both of whom have claimed to be “Goa’s biggest”), Literati (which has got rave revues for its collection and ambiance, both, but faces pressures), Manali at Anjuna, and a handful of others are still standing. Lotus Eaters, an entirely second-hand outlet, shifted from Anjuna to Merces, but in pandemic times it’s tough to keep in touch. Can we afford to face more
bookshop fatalities?