Comfortably seated on the floor of his living room in his two-storey home in Kashmere Gate, Shahid Ansari (59) scours the numerous cardboard boxes that he uses to house his treasured comic books. He's in search of the third edition of Indrajal, an Indian comic book series. This comic - with its fragile pages and ragged edges - is one of Ansari's most prized possessions, and is marked at a really high price.
It is also part of his entire collection, stored in more than 20 cardboard boxes that are tucked away in different corners of his home. He also rents a facility to accommodate his vast collection that has expanded over the years to incorporate newspapers, photographs, albums, among other vintage items. Now a comic bookseller, Ansari has been collecting comic books all his life. "My family would say 'we will throw your books out of this house'." His wife, Shabnam Ansari (50) smiles in agreement.
Prized possessions
Ansari's fascination with comic books dates from his childhood, when he was just 11. His brother would read Chandamama, an Indian children’s magazine. This encouraged Ansari to pick up the book. "I wouldn’t eat till I had a book in hand," he reminisces.
As a child, Ansari and his brother would buy books from Gandhi Market - it is within a 15-minute walking distance from his house - where there used to be a lot of bookstores. "The shops in the market would have thousands of books and they would cost about 20 to 25 paise which was pretty economical for us," he adds.
"He wouldn't eat without a book in his hand. His mother would tell him and his brother, who also loved reading, 'I will give you books for dinner'. This friendly banter of hers became a prayer and these [comic books] have become a source of employment for us now," shares Shabnam.
Recounting his childhood favourites, Ansari shares that he grew up reading comics such as Deewana, Manoj, Cheenu-Meenu, Indrajal, Diamond, Vikram, among others. "There used to be a comic called Mahabali Shera, which was published in Gandhinagar. It was a limited edition comic, and was my favourite," he mentions.
As an ardent reader, Ansari's reading list expanded from novels to newspapers. However, comics continued to be dear to him. By 1980, his collection increased significantly and he began selling them. Currently, he owns about 25,000 comic books; a mere 10 per cent of the collection he once owned. "I have sold most of the books I had to major comic book collectors in the country and abroad," he says.
A blooming trend
There has been a declining readership of comic books, says Ansari. However, he also affirms that the market is in transition and the trend of collecting such books is on the rise. "These days, vintage magazines and comics are sold for thousands of rupees. Books that I once sold for about Rs 20 are now being traded for Rs 5,000. The lower limit [in current times] is at least a thousand rupees, and there is no upper limit per se," he explains.
Ansari has a number of first editions that were published more than five or six decades ago and thus, require special attention. Talking about preserving such books, he concludes, "Vintage books require extra care. I pack these books separately in individual polythene covers. People also use cardboard binding to preserve them. Apart from this, one must also keep the book upright to ensure no damage is caused," he said.