In Love With A Bookshop

Deepti Gopalakrishnan

8 June 2008, 02:24

I have been truly, madly, deeply in love for over 10 years now. The inevitable question would be ‘with whom’?. The emphatic answer would be Landmark. Landmark is a bookshop well known to most residents of Madras. It has started stores in different parts of the country now, thankfully.

This would be my normal routine, every Saturday, when the sun spares us in the evening, my parents and I would start an exciting trip , to my favourite place . After getting through the usual traffic near Gemini flyover, we would reach Landmark, Nungambakam. Landmark was an abode of books. My parents would leave me to savour the delightful books that were strewn in all directions. As a ten year old, I would carefully search for Nancy Drews and Perry Mason books.

As I grew older, I shifted my loyalties to Landmark, Spencer Plaza, which was bigger and better. I found brilliant books, which I had been searching for all over. Spencer plaza as many would know is a huge mall which housed many stores and brands. The only reason I went there was this mammoth bookshop, which has kept me enamoured by the books available. Landmark has witnessed the near perfect execution of the various tricks up my sleeve, to convince my parents to buy me books. Fortunately, my parents have always been generous about books, I was always allowed to buy a ‘certain number’ of books which would not be available in the myriad libraries of Madras.

Landmark bears testimony to the growth of the reader in me. It has constantly been feeding me with literary greats, who have enthralled me with their writings, their ideas. I have grown from being a hardcore Enid Blyton fan to a Calvino, Borges, Tolkein fan. The list is endless, thanks to a wide range of authors that Landmark has exposed me to and whenever I evinced an interest in a book that was not available, the people in charge would promise to get it as soon as they could.

The people who work there have a huge role to play and they play it well. They are well read and extremely forthcoming about good books. I couldn’t thank them enough for introducing books by Georges Perec, Paul Auster and other fantastic authors to me. Landmark, Chennai

Now, as I visit Landmark, Bombay, I know that this love affair that has transcended cities will continue as long as there are books to read.

Comment

  1. I love Landmark too,been to the ones in Bombay,Banglore and Madras.Nice article too….:)

    — Ashwath · Jun 8, 15:13 · #

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