There was a time when the beginning of an academic season brought parents and students to the series of bookstalls in Koti, Hyderabad. They used to wait for their turn for new textbooks, second-hand sets. The school season began this year. The books and sellers are there at the counter, but the crowd is thin. This has been so for over a decade now.Ranjeet Gunjote has run his bookstall here for as long as he can remember as his father owned the place before. In the past, people would come in with booklists, reading out titles while their children waited. Now, those lists rarely show up. Many schools tell parents to buy from a single store linked to a specific publisher, where they must purchase the full set. Ranjeet still has unsold books from previous school seasons on his shelves. “We were their go-to place,” he says. “Now we are their last choice.”
Book stores by the side of a road in Koti, Hyderabad, on April 02, 2006.
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Sold out by eveningHe remembers when things were different. Whether it was engineering, medicine, law, or other courses, students in Hyderabad came to Koti for what they needed. The lanes would get so crowded that people used to stand on the main road. Over time, authorities had to set aside space for the market. Books that arrived in the morning would be sold out by evening.
