It is truly the end of an era.
Sri K.K.S. Murthy, the quiet, unassuming, humble and beloved proprietor of Bangalore's iconic Select Bookshop has reached the abode of divinity today.
The man was the bookshop: far away from the madding crowd, it still reposes in a corner in a lane on Brigade Road. It is the proverbial lotus amidst the muck of cheap and imitative westernisation that pervades the area.
Select Bookshop is a state of mind. Nobody gives you its location. You find it. Or you don't. You are not a full-blooded Bangalorean if you haven't at least heard its name. Shame on you if you belong to that cursed class.
Select Bookshop is also one of Bangalore's oldest intellectual landmarks without being one. It has nurtured at least five generations of bookworms and bibliophiles. At its peak, no book-seeker who came to its portals went away disappointed.
Sri Murthy inherited the stewardship and legacy of Select Bookshop from his father, Sri K.B.K. Rao (from Kurnool) who abandoned his lucrative law practice and founded it in 1945 owing to his unsullied love for books. An Englishman, E.J. Robertson noticed Sri Rao's passion for books and offered his garage on Museum Road. That was the first dwelling of Select Bookshop. In the chronological sense, it is older than the Indian Republic.
After Sri Rao passed away, Sri Murthy took over its reins, giving up his career as an aeronautical engineer. Like his father, Murthy too, was an avid book collector. He travelled almost to every book fair in the world and spent a substantial part of his life in book-hunting. From New York's Park Avenue Armory to the street bookshops lined on the Seine in France to Chennai's Moore Market to Delhi's Daryaganj and took part in countless book auctions.
Select Bookshop's motto evokes the charm of old school etiquette: A Rendezvous for Like Minds. It is also old school in another sense -- the "bookstore" is actually unwieldy piles of books stacked atop each other in three small rooms on the ground floor and a more spacious apartment on the first. The pleasure lies in sifting and arranging and rearranging. The experience is akin to a profound quest. From obscure and forgotten titles and rare, first editions to the latest Lee Child, Select has it all. Then there is the thrill of accidentally finding a book you were not looking for but which you want to buy the moment you see it. Select Bookshop is not for the Blinkit and Netflix generation that finds an illusion of happiness in the superficial, the fleeting and the ephemeral. It is a proper full-course South Indian meal to be relished, and not instant noodles that are merely consumed.
Select Bookshop's long-time customers include the likes of C.V. Raman, Jiddu Krishnamurthy, Ruskin Bond, T.N. Chaturvedi (former governor of Tamil Nadu) and Leftist parasites like Ramachandra Guha and Girish Karnad.
Sri Murthy was perhaps the last of a vanished generation of booksellers who went out of their way to procure a book that they didn't have but which the customer wanted. To this generation, bookselling was primarily a self-avowed commitment. The commercial aspect was only ancillary. I've seen the sort of generous discount that Sri Murthy gave to a certain professor from North Karnataka sometime during my visit in the early 1990s. The gentleman had bought books worth more than ₹ 10,000 in that era. To put this in perspective, the price of a Bajaj Chetak was ₹ 18,000.
Sri Murthy would take down the customer's request in his own handwriting and would unfailingly inform him when the book had arrived at his store. I have personally been the recipient of many such books in my high school and college years. Select Bookshop has played no small part in my own education, to put it mildly.
Select Bookshop celebrates its 80th anniversary this year. It has endured as an intellectual institution and a favourite destination for knowledge-seekers. It is fondly cherished by folks who know that its real value far exceeds the price of the books it sells. Perhaps its most extraordinary distinction is the fact that it didn't set out to become an institution or anything for that matter. It is a state of mind, but it is also a quiet force of nature.
And the life of Sri K.K.S. Murthy - the man who nurtured its founding legacy - epitomises DVG's memorable Kagga of devoting oneself to a lofty purpose and persisting in it for life. His journey of 96 years on this earth is worth emulating.
He will be missed.
|| 🕉️ Shanti Shanti Shanti ||
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