I am an Indian

Ideally, there is a first mover's advantage, which, unfortunately India has seldom had. If that wasn't enough, we don't even inculcate learning-from-the-first-mover's-mistakes advantage. So what have you ? Most of the newly born and toddler book retail chain stores in India not learning from their grandpa like stores in the West. They seem to be repeating the same mistakes, if not actually inventing graver ones. Book buyers looking at what gives them better profit on paper rather than understanding what a book has to offer is certainly a doomsday call in book-selling. And then you have salespersons in book-cum-music-cum-gift stores who don't know their Erich Seagal from their Enrique or their Jagjit Singh from Khushwant Singh. Singh is King after all, same difference !

A great lesson for them could be Foyles Bookstore at Charing Cross Road, London. An amazing bookshop where the salesperson is also the book buyer. In one stroke, they seem to have eliminated most of the recent day problems in book retailing and seem to be doing
wonderfully well.

This is nothing madamji ( pardon me sirji, i prefer concentrating on what deserves concentration), look at what we have managed to do with the deadly-but-let's-not-call-it-so Swine Flu...err H1N1 virus... lest the pigs take offense. We knew the whole world was getting it; we knew we have cities with some of the highest density of population in the world; we knew we have the maximum number of young people in the world, yet what did we do ? I can give you a first hand account. A brave me with my wife and our two young angels (did you hear devils, that was my wife, sorry) arrived at I.G.I.A, New Delhi straight from New Jersey, USA in the middle of the H1N1 scare. The anxious masked young girls sitting behind the desk looked at us with an expression that said don't-be-angry-but-even-we-don't-know-what-we-are-doing-here and quickly parroted what they had been trained to say — " Do any of you have fever ? Or a cold ? Or a cough? If you get any of these symptoms, do call me dearies, for now, please leave." This, in a country where confirmed patients run away from hospitals and ministers have to personally ensure that they are fetched back.

I don't know why i am sounding so skeptical. I am an Indian. Upar wala sab theeek karega. He will take care of all of us. After all, He is the one who also created the pigs.

The Knowledge Trinity

It seems i am getting hooked to blogging, haven't blogged for a couple of months and i already have withdrawal symptoms. So here i am, returning from back-to-back London and New York trips which kept me away from the routine ( thankfully i still take a bath everyday unlike a lot of people in London :)

London and New York, two big cities — two of the biggest hubs of world publishing. It is almost as if they were separated at birth — strikingly similar and teasingly different. Let's begin first with what binds them. They say the London weather is as unpredictable as Indian women, if that's the case then New York weather is no different from a T20 cricket match, to use a cliche, the only thing predictable about it, is that it is unpredictable. The roaring, rather deafening subway trains in the two cities— the New York Subway and the London Underground — almost simultaneously built in the beginning of 20th century are remnants of the might and vision that was, and a loud (literally) reminder of the need for constant improvement. Another queer similarity is the number and kind of Indians you come across — be it on the Wall Street or the Oxford Street — and mind you a lot of them are not the "Paaji, ki haal hai ? ( 'Brother how are you? ' in Punjabi) types".

Talking about Indians, most of the Indian restaurants in London are actually run by Bangladeshis — majority of them serve good-for-nothing food and are actually doing a dis-service to both Indian and Bangladeshi cuisine. To top it, they are downright rude.
I have a suggestion. I think all Indian-run restaurants should start writing "Run by Indians" underneath the restaurant names to retain the brand-value of Indian cuisine. Food reminds me of the American tradition of 'big things' — from big cars to bigger buildings and the biggest portions of food you would ever eat, they seem to have a fetish for size. Bookshops in New York faithfully follow the pattern too, though as of now, there are more people buying books in a London bookshop than in its compatriot in New York. Americans seem more clued on to the mind-body-spirit genre while for the British, lifestyle books appear to champion the non-fiction genre. There is of course far more interest in India and Indian subjects in London than in 'The Big Apple'. A visit to the museums in the two cities clears any misconceptions that one may have on this. British Museum and Victoria & Albert Museum also display the inherent capacity of the British to look beyond the obvious. Their impeccable upkeep is even more creditable because they don't charge a penny in entrance fee, (except for special shows) unlike the US museums which have more-than-a-nominal entrance fee. No wonders British take pride in their sense of history.

It is time the book people of Darya Ganj too realised that they have a chance to create history — to make New Delhi one of the three big cities of world publishing — the missing link of the knowledge trinity.

Blowing Our Own Trumpet

Alright, i am trying to be not my usual self. To begin with, i will try and blow our own trumpet.

Wisdom Tree, since its inception ( or is it germination) has been involved in some pioneering and path-breaking work. Be it doing books in unconventional sizes based on unconventional themes or selling them through unconventional mediums, we are known to be the trendsetters. Don't believe it ? Alright then, here we go.

We brought Garfield books to India, priced them at Rs 50 and sold them though Barista coffee shops and really started the connection between coffee and books in India. The book cafes followed. ( For documentary evidence visit http://www.indiantelevision.com/mam/headlines/y2k3/nov/novmam31.htm)

Understanding that reading is a one way process, we started Wisdom Tree Interactive and Under the Wisdom Tree to bridge the gap between our authors and readers and made the process interactive.

We gave value addition to our books — adding a free magnetic compass to a vaastu book or a tulsi mala to a book on mantras; sold our books through pharmacies, restaurants, garment stores; sold rights to our books in more than a dozen countries and established a global distribution network.

We again did pioneering work in book marketing by distributing complimentary preview booklets for one of our books and are mentioned in the Limca Book of Records for being the first Indian publisher to do that.

Flying in authors from abroad for book events ( well before a certain Mr Archer decided to look up India) to organising a live conference with the much loved and my absolute favourite Paulo Coelho, we did it all and ahead of the rest of the publishing world.

Now I am told, our experiment with the genre of graphic novel, Indian by Choice, which we believe is again inherently unique and Indian — it is colourful and bright unlike the usual graphic novels, has got Indian publishing industry really excited and if my information is correct, you will see many graphic novels from India in the future. The credit for this one goes to our dear author Amit Dasgupta and artist Neelabh Banrjee.

And here is the latest. We are launching Indian by Choice on 19th April at India House and Indian Saris and Indian Birds in Focus at the Nehru Centre, London on 20th April coinciding with the London Book Fair. To add to it, we have placed a one page advertisement featuring our UK lead titles in the prestigious UK magazine The Bookseller.

Did you say another first? I did'nt.

Phew! That was taxing for me. Imagine you.