I owe a lot to booksellers. I don't simply mean publishers or stores; I mean the men and women who populate sales counters at shops, as well as vendors who once lined the pavements and corners around the University of Bombay at Fort. Back then, I made it a habit of walking from my college at Marine Lines to Churchgate station for my train home, simply because it allowed me to move slowly past the rows of books on display along the way. I would skip lunch whenever possible, and use the money saved to purchase anything that caught my eye.

The interesting thing is, I was often nudged towards a particular title by the men in charge of those stalls, because they knew what they were selling. The streets of Bombay are desolate now, because so many of those vendors have been chased away. We are a city governed by people who turn a blind eye to encroachments, accept a bribe to allow vendors to cook hot food at bus stops, but cannot stand the idea of anyone selling a book in public without a licence. What have we gained by stripping those pavements of literature anyway? And who is to say that some pavements are more valuable than others simply by their proximity to Mantralaya?