The Historic Daryaganj Book Market which used to be lit every Sunday has now been closed due to a High Court Order. Every Sunday, over 200 Booksellers used to lie down on the footpath and sell books at a really low price. Best-Sellers like Sherlock Holmes, Stephen King were sold at just 50-80Rs per book.
It began back in 1974, the Daryaganj Book Market was known for the availability of rare titles at cheap prices. On 3rd of July, Delhi High Court ordered the NDMC to ensure that weekly bazaars on Sundays were not permitted on Netaji Subhash Marg.
Post its closure, several constant visitors of the Sunday Bazaar were filled with shock, anger, and nostalgia over the market which brought them a lot of books at half of their price. This is, however, not the first time the book market has been shut down. In January 2018, the same thing happened. After one, two months, we again began seeing booksellers lining their footpath stalls every Sundays.
Author Rakshanda Jalil spoke on how she would go to the bazaar all through her college years in the early and mid-80s. “It was a Sunday ritual. I knew exactly which guys had the good stuff they kept sort of hidden so you had to poke around,” she said.
Reason for its closure
The reason why the Sunday Book market has been shut down is because of the huge amount of traffic which passes through the streets. The booksellers used to cover the whole footpaths and people had to travel on the roads which can sometimes turn out to be fatal, especially with a kid.
The decision by Delhi High Court has leftover 200 Booksellers suffering from a lot of loss. Although, people from NDMC did offer them several alternate sites to put their books on. These are the Ramlila Maidan, the around Delite Cinema.
Did you ever purchase a book from the Sunday Market? Comment down below.
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