Lokmilap, the legendary bookstore synonymous with Gujaratis reading habits, is set for a fresh innings from a new address in Bhavnagar city Monday, four years after it was shut in 2020. The new bookstore will start functioning in the Hill Drive area of the city.
“We are starting it from Monday without any formal inauguration. Children’s literature will be one of the focus areas of the bookstore,” said Yash, the great grandson of acclaimed poet Jhaverchand Meghani and who is the mastermind behind the revival of the bookstore.
Yash’s grandfather Mahendrabhai Meghani — the eldest son of Jhaverchand — set up the Lokmilap bookstore in 1954, four years after he launched the Lokmilap publishing house.
For the next 70 years, the iconic bookstore, which came to be a cultural landmark of Bhavnagar, took a number of initiatives to inculcate reading among Gujaratis. It also brought the best of the world literature to their doorsteps without compromising on the quality of the works.
The credit goes to Yash’s parents Gopal — Mahendrabhai’s son — and his wife Rajshri who ran the literature haven until 2020, right before Covid-19 hit the world. They decided to retire from work and shut down the bookstore. Meanwhile, Mahendrabhai passed away in 2022.
“We had shut it not because there was a lack of demand or so, but because my wife Rajshri and I wanted to retire. It was done with a spirit that everything good has to end,” says Gopal.
“Back then, he asked me if I wanted to continue it. I had said no since I was working and had plans to start a restaurant,” Yash quips in.
However, the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns played spoilsport, and Yash started selling books online taking orders through WhatsApp under Lokmilap’s banner. “The response has been overwhelming. People are ordering so much that one room of our flat is occupied by books yet to be dispatched. Not only that, people have started coming to our residence knowing that we do business from there. So, we started looking for a place where we could store the books and start a small bookstore where the collection is not as huge as the earlier Lokmilap, but that is good,” he adds.
He was on a hunt for a suitable place for the bookstore and found one in the peaceful residential area of Hill Drive. “I will manage the bookstore with the help of my father,” says Yash.
The previous Lokmilap store in the Sardarnagar area of the city was spread over 700-750 square feet. “The new one will be a 200 square feet shop that we have taken on rent. If found necessary, we will decide on its expansion in the future,” he adds.
His father is more ecstatic about the new beginning. “It is a feeling like ‘ab tumhare havale watan sathio!’ Now, he (Yash) will handle it. Yash did it (selling books under Lokmilap) online for three years and then realized there is an overwhelming response. So, he is restarting the bookstore,” Gopal told The Indian Express.
Currently, the father is busy helping his son with the choice of books and setting up the bookstore. “Because now it is going to be a bookstore and it should not be that someone comes and asks for a popular book and we do not have it. So, I will help him for some time and then he will handle it himself. He is learning how to interact with customers, which books to show to the customers, etc.. As (Jhaverchand) Meghani once said: ‘A bookseller has to be the gyan-mali (knowledgeable). We think that he (Yash) is going in that direction,” Gopal adds.
Meanwhile, the readers of Bhavnagar are a happy lot. “It is very good news for Bhavnagar. Lokmilap is not just a bookstore, but a center of dissemination of culture in Gujarat. My entire childhood has been shaped under Lokmilap,” says Mahendrasinh Parmar, city resident and the head of Gujarati department, at Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University.