Vijay Kumar Jain's pristine home in Sector 14, Gurgaon - the older part of the National Capital Region's tony suburb - is a bibliophile's delight. Shelves after shelves are lined with antique books dating back to the 1800s. "I used to have one of the largest collection of books on the 1857 war," says the 73-year-old owner of Prabhu Book Service. He is an authority on Indian social sciences and literature. The shop which started in August 1962, is known for its collection of rare, out-of-print books and journals. He counts writers like Ramachandra Guha, Shashi Tharoor and Vikram Seth among his customers. "Guha has been coming to us for the past 25 to 30 years," says Jain.
Jain comes from a family of noted lawyers, one of the earliest to settle down in Gurgaon. "My grandfather came here in the early 1900s and took the space in Main Bazaar," he says. "According to the 1883 census, the population of Gurgaon was a mere 3,000 but its boundaries extended beyond Palwal and Rewari." His elder brother, a staunch Gandhian, initiated him into the world of books and would often take him to Delhi's famous Sunday Market spread across the pavements from Jagat Cinema to Golcha Cinema where they would spend hours browsing through books on naturopathy, homeopathy, Gandhiana and nationalism. "My brother worked in the ministry of finance and there came a time when his government quarter in Moti Bagh didn't have any more space left for his collection of books," says Jain.
The book service began innocuously enough. "My brother had done a short course in archiving from the National Archives and knew the significance of his collection. So we decided to sell copies of some of the rare books we had." Thus started Prabhu Book Service, named after their grandfather. Orders started trickling in. Then one day they got a big bunch of orders from Germany's Heidelberg University for old reports and books on politics and economics. After that, there was no looking back.
The period between the 1960s and 1980s proved active for Jain. As the book service became popular, Jain started travelling to Ahmedabad, Chennai, Mumbai and Kolkata to rummage through collections of antique books there. "Books got into my blood. Thousands of out-of-print books passed through my hands. For instance, when Gandhiji came back to India and the nationalist phase began, GA Natesan and Co in Chennai used to publish monographs about him. I got to see those," he says. The Nehru Memorial Museum and Library and the Institute of Economic Growth also got books from him.
"I wouldn't say that running a book service is a very paying proposition, but it's the passion that sustains it. When you see the happiness on someone's face, it's all worth it," he says, while recounting the instance when a tall German scholar came to him, desperate for a book about the permanent settlement of Bengal. "She said to me, 'I will consider you a great bookseller if you can get me that book'. I pointed to a pile in my store in which the book was plainly visible. She started jumping with joy," smiles Jain.
Jain and his elder brother also started the Guide to Indian Periodical Literature, a subject-author index to articles and other material appearing in journals in the field of social sciences. Till date 50 volumes of the guide have been published. Jain considers himself fortunate in his range of customers. "Vikram Seth came here when he was writing A Suitable Boy. Shashi Tharoor came with our regular customer AG Noorani. Maneka Gandhi was interested in lithographs and visited us a couple of times," says Jain. He recalls his interaction with Indira Gandhi in the 1980s. "Maneka Gandhi must have mentioned us to her. So the head of National Book Trust called me to say that Madam wanted to meet me. At that time I was participating in the World Book Fair, so Mrs Gandhi came there and took Churchill's memoirs and two volumes on Parsis dating back to the 1850s from me. She visited us again in 1982," he says.
Today Jain's two sons help him with the book service. His face turns wistful while recalling the golden era of the 1960s as he opens his personal collection for me. The beautifully embossed binding of Sakoontala by Monier Williams (he estimates its cost at Rs 40,000), dating back to 1855, gleams back at me, as do the vibrant handpainted illustrations in Tom Raw and the Griffin, a burlesque poem written in 1828. "It is sad that in such a big nation there are barely five antique book shops. Today, people in the book trade are also anpadh. Na woh jaanne wale log hain na woh knowledgable book store wale (Today's booksellers are neither educated nor knowledgeable)," he says.
Jain comes from a family of noted lawyers, one of the earliest to settle down in Gurgaon. "My grandfather came here in the early 1900s and took the space in Main Bazaar," he says. "According to the 1883 census, the population of Gurgaon was a mere 3,000 but its boundaries extended beyond Palwal and Rewari." His elder brother, a staunch Gandhian, initiated him into the world of books and would often take him to Delhi's famous Sunday Market spread across the pavements from Jagat Cinema to Golcha Cinema where they would spend hours browsing through books on naturopathy, homeopathy, Gandhiana and nationalism. "My brother worked in the ministry of finance and there came a time when his government quarter in Moti Bagh didn't have any more space left for his collection of books," says Jain.
The book service began innocuously enough. "My brother had done a short course in archiving from the National Archives and knew the significance of his collection. So we decided to sell copies of some of the rare books we had." Thus started Prabhu Book Service, named after their grandfather. Orders started trickling in. Then one day they got a big bunch of orders from Germany's Heidelberg University for old reports and books on politics and economics. After that, there was no looking back.
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After getting the requisite export permits from the Reserve Bank of India, Jain started sending catalogues to prominent international universities. "At that time, universities in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Denmark were just beginning to build their India collections, so they started ordering books from us. Also, a lot of research scholars from abroad started visiting our shop when working on their theses," says Jain. Historian Norman Gerald Barrier, considered an authority on the Punjab, would buy books from him for Rs 7 and sell them at Columbia University for $20. "A noted professor from Japan realised that we had a goldmine of books. He picked up a lot of old government publications and books by professors K T Shah and Gyan Chand. Another Japanese teacher came to us as a student and now sends his own students to us," says Jain. When his younger brother finished his graduation, Jain started the Delhi branch in Daryaganj and put him in charge. Today, the Delhi branch, known as Manohar Book Store, has the best collection of academic and scholarly books.
The period between the 1960s and 1980s proved active for Jain. As the book service became popular, Jain started travelling to Ahmedabad, Chennai, Mumbai and Kolkata to rummage through collections of antique books there. "Books got into my blood. Thousands of out-of-print books passed through my hands. For instance, when Gandhiji came back to India and the nationalist phase began, GA Natesan and Co in Chennai used to publish monographs about him. I got to see those," he says. The Nehru Memorial Museum and Library and the Institute of Economic Growth also got books from him.
"I wouldn't say that running a book service is a very paying proposition, but it's the passion that sustains it. When you see the happiness on someone's face, it's all worth it," he says, while recounting the instance when a tall German scholar came to him, desperate for a book about the permanent settlement of Bengal. "She said to me, 'I will consider you a great bookseller if you can get me that book'. I pointed to a pile in my store in which the book was plainly visible. She started jumping with joy," smiles Jain.
Jain and his elder brother also started the Guide to Indian Periodical Literature, a subject-author index to articles and other material appearing in journals in the field of social sciences. Till date 50 volumes of the guide have been published. Jain considers himself fortunate in his range of customers. "Vikram Seth came here when he was writing A Suitable Boy. Shashi Tharoor came with our regular customer AG Noorani. Maneka Gandhi was interested in lithographs and visited us a couple of times," says Jain. He recalls his interaction with Indira Gandhi in the 1980s. "Maneka Gandhi must have mentioned us to her. So the head of National Book Trust called me to say that Madam wanted to meet me. At that time I was participating in the World Book Fair, so Mrs Gandhi came there and took Churchill's memoirs and two volumes on Parsis dating back to the 1850s from me. She visited us again in 1982," he says.
Today Jain's two sons help him with the book service. His face turns wistful while recalling the golden era of the 1960s as he opens his personal collection for me. The beautifully embossed binding of Sakoontala by Monier Williams (he estimates its cost at Rs 40,000), dating back to 1855, gleams back at me, as do the vibrant handpainted illustrations in Tom Raw and the Griffin, a burlesque poem written in 1828. "It is sad that in such a big nation there are barely five antique book shops. Today, people in the book trade are also anpadh. Na woh jaanne wale log hain na woh knowledgable book store wale (Today's booksellers are neither educated nor knowledgeable)," he says.