Bahrisons: Chronicle of a Bookshop

In August 1947, the Partition of India sent millions of refugees fleeing across the border. Among them were nineteen-year-old Balraj Bahri, and sixteen-year-old Bhag Guliani. Both their families had migrated to Delhi and settled in the barracks of Kingsway refugee camp, where in 1948, they met and fell in love. As Bhag worked as a clerk at the Ministry of Relief and Rehabilitation, Balraj picked up odd jobs until 1953, when he founded a small bookshop in Khan Market called Bahrisons. The couple married in 1955, and together, grew their business from a collection of books to the iconic shops that are synonymous with the reading culture of India today. For seventy long years, Bahrisons Booksellers has furnished the libraries of generations of families across the world. From a single shop, it has grown to multiple locations across India. Its reputation of being able to source any book, no matter how rare or obscure, beginning with its original founders, has been passed down to their son, Anuj Bahri and his wife, Rajni Malhotra, who run the shops today with their trusted team. Written as a collaboration between a father and a daughter, the second and third generation, Bahrisons: Chronicle of a Bookshop is an homage to this institution, and is as much a familial history as it is an entrepreneurial one.