Vile Parle-based Ramji Patel started Kamal Book Shop in 1985 and has been running it ever since then with the help of his sons. Photos Courtesy: Nascimento Pinto
After coming to Mumbai from Kutch in Gujarat at the age of 14, Ramji Patel did a few odd jobs including working at a kirana shop. Soon, his cousin brother and him started a scrap shop because they didn't have the money to start a kirana shop. After some time, Ramji took up his own shop and started selling books, which used to often come from people.
Over the years, Ramji's sons Ramesh and Jigar joined him in the business. Situated off Irla bridge towards Andheri, the bookshop has over 15,000 books of different kinds that people can choose from. Today, people can take the books for as cheap as Rs 100, and that goes up to Rs 500, but they also exchange books and give them at cheaper prices.
All of the books range from Enid Blyton, Sudha Murty and the Geronimo Stilton series to others like self-help books. Apart from children, we also get older people who come in to buy and read Ramayana, Bhagavad Gita, Mahabharata and other religious books too.
They have books in English, Hindi, Marathi and even Gujarati but the English books are the most popular followed by Hindi books. At one point in time, people used to come all the way from Vasai, Virar, Vapi and other places in Gujarat to buy books from them.
While the father doesn’t go around looking or picking up books anymore because of his age, the sons have taken over and frequently meet their patrons who give them books for resale. Apart from books, they also have different kinds of second-hand devices that people come to purchase from them for their personal use.
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