Bahrisons, Delhi’s iconic book store in Khan Market is 70 and going strong

Anuj Bahri Malhotra, owner of Bahrisons Booksellers in Khan Market, has stayed true to his and his father's dreams of providing every book lover the book they come looking for in his shop. Bahrisons has a unique bond with its customers, and the well-trained staff and family running the business help quench their literary thirst. With 1 lakh titles and 2 copies of each, the shop is a sanctuary for book lovers where like-minded people meet to buy and discuss books and inspire each other.

“When you are running a heritage bookstore, there is a goal to the legacy of the business,” says Anuj Bahri Malhotra, sitting in his favourite spot in the upper section of Bahrisons Booksellers in Khan Market. With the book store completing 70 years this October, he has stayed true to the dreams of his father’s and his own : to get every book lover the book he or she comes looking for in the shop.

In the last few years, people may have moved to Kindle, e-reading or online buying. But there is a huge section for whom purchasing a book is like drifting into a different world. It means bookshop hopping, scanning shelves and scouting for titles, flipping and sniffing through the pages, discussing a book or getting recommendations from other interesting people. “It is for them, we have lived on and will,” smiles Anuj.

In the last seven decades, Bahrisons has remained closed only on two occasions — on February 26, 2016, when his father passed away and for 10 days during the pandemic. “The COVID-19 days gave us courage. We knew our customers were confined to their homes, getting bored and wanting to read. We made personal calls to many while many others reached out to us. We got special permission from Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to open after 10 days and deliver books to our customers” says Anuj.

Bahrisons has always shared this bond with its customers. Inside the shop or outside, in any part of the world, book lovers reach out to the well-trained staff and the family running the business, to quench their literary thirst.

“People browse unhindered for hours here,” says Anuj, as one walks between aisles of books in the 800 square feet shop, established by Balraj Bahri Malhotra in 1953 with his personal collection of 1,000 books.

Those days, 200 new titles were published on an average every year; now there are 2,000 each year. At any given time, the shop has on display two copies each of at least one lakh titles. “We keep multiple copies of trending titles in the warehouse; as a good salesperson, I know how to rotate my stock,” says Anuj, who has tweaked the shop lay-out to make it spacious.

“My father always sat at the cash counter. I feel his presence in the shop,” says Anuj, who started accompanying his father to the shop at the age of 16 in 1979, and joined as a full-timer in 1981.