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Old book stalls' numbers shrinking in city
Rawalpindi, Jan 28, 2008: The number of old books stalls, used to be an attraction for
students, literary persons and scholars, is shrinking in the city as most of the
vendors have shifted to other businesses due to various reasons.
Old
books stalls, set up on footpaths in front of closed shops in Saddar area on
every Sunday, were a routine since the last four decades. There was a time when
the Bank Road and other main Saddar markets had been full of these stalls and
people of all ages bought books of their choice from there. But now the number
of these stalls has been reduced considerably and only scholars, researchers and
literary persons, who have set up their personal libraries in their houses,
visit these stalls.
Departmental stores and shops remain open in the
market on Sunday and shopkeepers don't allow us to set up old books stalls in
front of their shops, said Amir Khan, a vendor. He said some of shopkeepers had
rented out footpaths in front of their shops for other businesses and they could
not pay such a heavy rent.
He said many vendors, who were used to selling
old books on roadsides, had their own shops now. He pointed out thatscrap
dealers were now selling old books to these old book banks, which had greatly
affected their business.
Ahmed Saleem, a researcher from Islamabad, said
that despite fragile security situation in the city he was coming to Rawalpindi
every Sunday to visit old books stalls. He said for him the old books stalls
were of great value as he could get good books and educational material at a
nominal price. He contradicted that now only a few people were visiting the old
books stalls.
Youth prefer CDs: Mohammad Akhtar, who has been setting up
old books stall on the Bank Road for the last 30 years, said that now people,
especially the younger generation, throng compact disks (CDs) stalls rather than
buying books. However, he said his regular customers had been coming to his
stall every Sunday. Shafiq Ahmed, another vendor, said that the profit margin on
old books was very little but it had become a routine for him to set up stall on
every Sunday because in addition to being a business, it was a service to the
people. He remarked that many people could not afford new books, as they are
very expensive.
He said he used to spend the entire week collecting books
from various offices and scrap dealers. He said he was now thinking to switch
over to some other business as his expenditures were increasing because the
Cantonment Board had increased the fee from Rs50 to Rs200 for setting up a stall
in the area. In addition to the Cantonment Board fee, I have to pay the
transport fare as well for bringing the books from house, he
added.
"People think that we are making a lot of money from these old
books, but sometimes people steal expensive books and we have to bear the loss,"
he said. Students said they were not visiting these stalls to buy books, as
syllabus books were not available with them. Hamad Ali, a student, said the
government change the syllabus every year and these old books stalls were unable
to meet their requirement.
Some of the people said that bomb blasts forced them to stay home. Some of them were of the
view that youths instead of consulting books were downloading the required
information from Internet or CDs as now almost everyone had a PC, which had
greatly affected the old books business. Daily Times
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