When I was in University, I used to go to the wholesale book (पुस्तक – Pustak) market of Delhi which is located in the walled city area of Delhi. This market is located in the area called Daryaganj, which is considered as the India’s biggest wholesale (थोक –thok) book market (or perhaps the biggest book publishing area in Asia). Many claims that you can find any Hindi books as well as English book available on this planet as every publishing house have a distributor there.
On Sunday (रविवार – Ravivaar), though, you could witness a different book market (बाज़ार – Baazar) in this area. This is the market where used books’ vendors gather and sell their books along the main street in open. This is the second biggest used books market in Asia. Those vendors (दुकानदार – Dukaandar) may not have proper shops, but they have a fixed place on the pedestrian area where they will stack or scatter their collection of used books. Some vendors have a mixed collection (संग्राहलय – Sangrahlay) of books containing novels, magazine, technical etc. while, others seems more selective in their collection selling the used books from the field of technical or medical science. Because of this, many students frequently visit this market in hope to get their study program related books which could be very expensive when brought new. It is also a treat for all novel (उपन्यास – Upanyaas) lovers as they get almost all famous novels at throw away price. By evening, when the vendors must finish up, they could be seen selling the books at the price that you won’t believe. For those collecting historical or rare collection of books, this market is a worth visiting. Couple of years ago, a gentlemen (सजन – Sajan) found a rare book at throw away price (मूल्य – Mulya) which was published in the 18th century!
Just like many shops in India, there you can bargain on the book’s price. According to my personal experience (अनुभव – Anubhav), depending on the vendor’s knowledge (जानकारी – Jaankaari) about the work, you can get low or huge bargain. Those vendors which don’t know much about the book could be pursued to offer good discount.
I would say that it is worth to visit such market as you never know which books await you there. On one occasion (अवसर – Avasar), I found an old book from Russia (रूस –Roos) which fascinated (मोहित – Mohit) so much that I decided to learn Russian language (रूसी – Roosi) since after then (and in fact, I had started learning it). On another count, I could find a rare technical book from the famous MIR Publisher from former USSR related to my field of study which showed me a completely new way of visualizing the geometrical figures which helped me understand the related topic much better than any other book available from the local market.
