When Bidisha Basu travelled to Japan in 2007 to teach locals English, little did she know how much it would change her perspective on reading. The Mumbaikar would come back and start a library out of her Bandra home along with her roommate. It was the start of a journey that made them go from having members who could get books from them online to owning a cosy café that would house the books for more readers to access. “I was fascinated with Japanese culture at the time and when I went there to teach English, I came across manga cafes, where people could read manga and have a good time at the café, and really liked the idea,” shares the Mumbaikar, who moved to Goa during the Covid-19 pandemic but frequents the city often.  

Initially, Basu along with her roommate, Utsa Shome, who is now her husband, sourced books from all over and kept them in their home; people could get books by ordering them through a rudimentary website they had set up at the time and exchange them for another. Mumbai has a rich reading culture and that is evident from the many bookshops and bookstores that have mushroomed in the city over many decades and are frequented by many Mumbaikars regularly. Interestingly, there is a bubbling sub-culture of manga, anime and comic book readers that are very comfortable in their own community and Leaping Windows cafe and comic library is at the centre of it all because it is among the few that caters to these readers.