More than 30 years ago, the Ambekars – Arvind, Arti and Anant -- started out by putting up stalls with school books and literature in Borivali’s Marathi-medium schools. Today, they are busy catering to Marathi literature enthusiasts with their vast knowledge and a sizeable collection to keep them going
The Ambekar family started Anant Book Sellers in 2000, eight years after they started doing participating in book exhibitions in Mumbai. Photo Courtesy: Nascimento Pinto
When Anant Ambekar was growing up, his mother, Arti, was a librarian at a Borivali East school called Yojana School, today known as Mangubai Dattani school. As luck would have it, Suhasini Kulkarni, the headmistress at the time encouraged her to complete a librarian’s course. It probably set the course for the rest of their life because soon after, the school head asked the family to put up an exhibition of children's Marathi books in the late 1980s. Being surrounded by Marathi-medium schools in the neighbourhood, they decided to take the leap of faith, one that allows them to boast of a wide variety of Marathi literature.
Arvind Ambekar, Anant's father and Suhasini's husband, shares, "At that time, I had no idea of how to display the books. Suhasini Kulkarni taught me and my wife how to set up the stall, exhibit the books and how to place them so that it will catch people's eye." At the time, Arvind was barely seven years old. “She was our first guru,” the second-generation bookshop owner chimes in, continuing, “It was a seminar where people from outside of India were supposed to come there. My mother’s brother has a bookshop in Girgaum, and her childhood has been around books. So, the headmistress went with my parents and selected the books herself from the shop and helped set up the stall.”
From exhibitions to the bookshop
It set the ball rolling for them as they started doing more exhibitions not only in that school but other schools in Borivali and beyond too. However, the challenge arrived when the books had to be kept somewhere. Since their house that they were staying in at that time was small, they could only keep so much in it. "We had too many books and they needed to be kept somewhere. So, we took the shop next door on rent but as always, the rent increases," says junior Ambekar. Having started their journey in the books business, they mastered the art of selling books and decided to take a leap of faith and start their own shop eight years later in Borivali West, where they now live.
Anant says, "In 2001, my father asked me if I was keen on sitting and running a bookshop, if not, the business was okay, and we would be fine." At the time, senior Ambekar says they were self-sufficient and didn't really need to open up a bookshop as they were earning enough from exhibitions. However, instead of paying the rent, they thought it would be better to start a bookshop because of the increasing demand for books in schools. It is when they started Anant Book Shop in Jayaraj Nagar.
It only further reaffirmed their belief that Marathi books would sell because of the schools around including Vidyamandir School in Dahisar, Suvidya School and Paranjape School, as well as Parle Tilak in Vile Parle, and St Anne’s School, where they have been putting up stalls on their annual day and day of their results too for many years. Over the years, they have worked with SSC, ICSE and CBSE schools and provided them with books.
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