A different kind of bookseller: Indian city remembers Ram Advani
For 68 years until his death, Ram Advani ran an independent bookshop in Lucknow that was more like an old-fashioned salon than a business, one where he got to know his customers - who came from all over India and overseas - and only sold them titles he thought they would want to read
On March 9, the bookstore on the corner of the art deco Mayfair building in the Indian city of Lucknow was closed to its usual stream of visitors. Ram Advani, the beloved bookseller who ran the city’s oldest independent bookshop, had died that morning at the age of 95.
Advani established his shop in Lucknow, the capital of the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, in 1948. He was widely known for his soft demeanour and erudite knowledge, and for embodying the cosmopolitan spirit of the city.
Many scholars of South Asia credit him with enabling their research. With news of his death, people across the world recalled the slight, charming man, his inviting bookstore and the fading history he represented.
Advani was born on October 12, 1920, in Karachi, to a family of booksellers from Sindh province who owned shops throughout present-day Pakistan. The eldest of five children, he accompanied his father to Lucknow in 1928 so that his father, having heard that the British had settled in that city, could open a bookshop that catered to their preferences.
He spent his formative years in the city, studying there and earning his master’s degree from Lucknow University in 1943.
