'Shelf Life' is a weekly series that explores the reading culture in Mumbai. In part two, Mid-Day visits Mahim’s Victoria Book Centre, which has a legacy of over 70 years. As one of the few bookshops providing a library service in the city, the centre has managed to survive the pandemic and continues to attract reading enthusiasts
Iqbal Merchant started working with his father at the book shop in 1985. Image credit: Manjeet Thakur
As the metro construction sign-boards partition the busy roads in western Mahim, one barely gets a glimpse of the Victoria Book Centre and Circulating Library, tucked in the right corner of a four-way intersection leading to Our Lady of Victories Church. What began as a closed-network circulating library drawing from Prof Suleiman Abdullah Merchant’s large collection of novels and comic books was expanded into a commercial library by Suleiman’s brother Noorali Merchant in 1948. Since then, this legacy book store has catered to the reading interests of generations in the city for over 70 years now.
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