Srinagar's Best Seller draws the line on blues, winds up

SRINAGAR: Best Seller, a 50-year-old bookstore that stood as a cultural and literary landmark at Srinagar’s Lal Chowk, has shut down, turning the page on years of a painful final chapter punctuated by slumping sales and bruising competition from online platforms.

“We are shifting to the dry fruits business,” said Saniyasnian, 32, the store’s owner with a tinge of sadness in his voice. Two labourers painted its shelves white as all books had been moved out of the shop a few hundred meters from Lal Chowk’s iconic clock tower.

The events were a far cry from 2016 when Sani -- as Saniyasnian is referred to fondly -- returned from Pune after his MBA and joined father Sanaullah to help him run the bookstore. It was a thriving business then.

Best Seller was known for its Urdu books with collections of Sahir Ludhianvi, Sir Mohammed Iqbal and Saagar Siddiqui. This was complemented by books on Islami, Sufism and tomes on the Kashmir conflict by local and foreign authors.

Sani added English and Russian literature and philosophy to Best Seller’s oeuvre, besides Salman Rushdie’s books and Harry Potter series. But no wizardry could stave off the blues. Covid struck a lethal blow, confining people to their homes and fuelling online transactions. Sani saw daily sales slump from Rs 35,000 in 2016 to just R 2,000 in 2024.

Desperate to stem the slide, Sani tried a different concept in 2023 -- he started selling books by weight, Rs 250 per kg. He advertised the scheme on Instagram, drawing droves of teenagers and youths. Back then, Sani recalled that two books were popular then -- George Orwell classic 1984 and Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki and Sharon Lechter.

Sales picked up for some weeks but lost momentum again. Sani offered 15% discounts on all books. He said this was higher than other bookstores but admitted that online platforms ladled out 20% to 40% rebates.

According to Sani, many people visited his store in recent times for browsing and window-shopping, walking away without making any purchases. Many picked up a book, checked its price and compared it online on their cellphones. “That’s when I saw they planned to buy it online. I can’t compete with online platforms,” Sani said.

Mudasir Ahmad, a college lecturer, had trooped into the shop on Monday. Gazing at the empty shelves, he turned to Sani and asked if he could “wait a year or two”. He cited research that “more people will be buying books”. Sani just smiled. “I also loved the store and books. But love alone cannot feed me or my family. Once a bookshop is closed, it is closed. There is no chance of a fresh chapter or a new page,” Sani said.