Post cyclone Amphan, as book lovers troop in to help rebuild Kolkata’s ‘boi para’—the legendary hub on College Street—can it be an opportunity for the local books market and publishing industry to reinvent itself?
I could never have imagined that of all the images of the devastation produced by cyclone Amphan, the one that would resonate around the world would be one of books drowning.
It was a photograph of College Street, Kolkata’s legendary boi para, or neighbourhood of books, Asia’s largest book market, home to dozens of secondhand book stores and publishers, big and small.
It showed waterlogged streets, shuttered stores, fallen trees and ripped, sodden books scattered in the murky water. “I would have reached out after seeing those