The idea of a bookstore with a café, which seems so common now, was unheard of in the Delhi of the 2000s. And it could only run at what is today considered one of the most upscale marketplaces in Delhi, the Khan Market, the 22nd most expensive retail high street in the world. When the Full Circle bookstore and Café Turtle, opened in 2000 at the Khan, it was “one of its kind”, says Priyanka Malhotra, the owner of the café—to everyone’s shock, it shut down in December.
The bookstore-café had, in fact, opened its doors first in 1998 in the Santushti Complex, before moving to Khan Market; it has, however, bid its final goodbye from there, as well. “With the pandemic, we have seen a significant change in Khan Market overall, with far fewer footfalls,” says Malhotra, explaining the rationale behind this move. It currently operates its Nizamuddin East and Greater Kailash I outlets.
Sanjiv Mehra, the president of the Khan Market Traders’ Association, tells a different tale. “The moment one place shuts down, another opens. If you have a product to sell, Khan Market will find customers for you,” he says. Like all cities, Delhi too has bustling markets, some more dynamic than others. New shops open, and old shops shift, or go out of business. Many businesses come and go, while many stay and grow. This is also true of Delhi’s Khan Market.
Changing hands, businesses
The market began as a “friendly neighbourhood market that sold everyday goods” in 1951, says one of the oldest shop owners and booksellers, Anuj Bahri, who runs Bahrisons Booksellers, established in 1953. It started with 154 shops on the ground floor and 74 flats on the first floor; Partition refugee families settled here and many started their shops. These were mostly family-owned grocery stores, serving the “diplomatic corps” due to the market’s proximity to embassies, courts, and other buildings of national importance, soon becoming a hub for the elite.
With time, the flats on the first floor turned into bookstores and restaurants, and some turned into a mixture of both. The rent too went up from Rs 9,500 to Rs 8 lakh a month for an area of 450-700-square feet. Khan currently has over 200 shops including both ground and first floors, while some have built more floors to expand vertically.
“Till the late ’80s, there were only a few bookstores, Faqir Chand, Bahrisons Booksellers, Tharia Ram and Sons, and The Bookshop. All in the first row. Out of these, only two of us are left today, us (Bahrisons) and Faqir Chand,” says Bahri. The Tharia Ram and Sons bookshop shut in 2000 and was replaced by a Citibank ATM, while The Bookshop shut down in 2006. The latter carried on in Jorbagh but that outlet, too, shut down last October. The Bookshop store at Khan was replaced by a Swarovski showroom.
The Bookshop has now become The Bookshop Inc., relocating to the Lodhi Market, with the original owners late KD Singh and his family ending their partnership with the bookstore. These two have been lucky to have changed hands and business only once. Old-timers point to one Elegance Furniture Store, which turned into a coffee shop, then to a clothing shop, then to a kebab place, and then back again to a clothing store.
‘A happening place’
At Khan Market, shops are always “happening”, says Mehra. For years, you may be neighbourly with the man or woman next door but one fine day, s/he may be gone. 7Bazaari, a snacking company that opened its Khan Market outlet this January, is, however, full of optimism. Young Aditya Bajaj, who owns the company with his sister Nehal, is right now focusing on the pluses—“the quality customers and their spending power”.
“Khan Market is never stagnant. If your products are not regularly updated, you go out of business, it is that simple. Many have stayed the same, and many have grown, you see Bahrisons (Booksellers), they have expanded enormously,” Mehra says. Last October, Bahrisons Booksellers—which by then had outlets in Saket, Vasant Kunj, Gurugram, Chandigarh and Kolkata—celebrated its 70th anniversary. This March, it plans to open its second outlet in Kolkata.
Talking about how Khan Market has changed over time, Bahri also shares the same view as Mehra: “The Torani (a luxury fashion brand) showroom, which was opened as a 450-square foot store in 2020, that too, during the pandemic, got another store last year, in August, exactly double the size of the previous one. If the market was not doing well, then how would that be possible?” he asks.
Embracing changes
Change is the norm here. In the last year itself, many new shops such as the Jaypore (an Indian artisanal crafts-based label) showroom, and the Pure (home decor) showroom have opened. Just two years back, cafés such as Blue Tokai expanded an outlet here while the Red Ink Agency (the Baharisons’ literary agency) opened its new office and Bahrisons Kids shifted to Colocal Café in the market. And while the Full Circle bookstore and Café Turtle space remain shut for now, it will not be too long before it opens for a new business. “We are in talks with at least more than ten shops who want to occupy the space, one of them being Kolkata’s Oxford Bookstore,” Mehra says.