PESHAWAR: The book vendors in and around Peshawar attract a trickling number of book lovers on weekends to make both ends meet.

Despite thin readership, the booksellers stake piles of used and new books on footpaths to attract book lovers and needy readers at discount prices, especially on Sundays when shops remain closed.

Most of them have been selling secondhand titles on variety of topics for the last over four decades.

Student suggests setting up Sunday book bazaar to promote reading culture

Saeed Jan Sufi, a books vendor at Khyber Bazaar, told this scribe that his father started selling books on a roadside stall 25 years ago and handed down the business to him after his death. He added that he had been in the profession for more than 30 years.

“Being poor, I cannot afford to pay high rent of bookstore so I set up a kind of mobile bookstall on ground somewhere in the city on days when stores and roadside shops remain closed. I make Rs500 to Rs650 per day. I sell used books at discount from Rs45 to Rs50 per cent depending on the quality and content. Mostly students of religious seminaries come for buying secondhand titles because they are unable to buy newly printed books,” said Mr Sufi.

Sakhi Gul, another bookseller, said that he had been selling used books on a footpath in Qissakhwani Bazaar for over 30 years.

He said that his father had also been doing the same. He said that although readership habit gone to the lowest ebb, yet still needy readers preferred to buy books from vendors because of low price.

“I am 50-year-old now. I inherited this profession from my father. He used to tell me that selling books was propitious. It doesn’t fetch me much but still I do well on Sundays,” he said Mr Gul.

The vendor said that ‘ground booksellers’ continued selling books on other days too as they set up stalls on roadsides but weekends fetched them much profit compared to normal days.

“Most of the students, especially poor, walk up to our bookstalls due to discounted prices. Most readers buy folk stories, Pashto and Urdu poetry collections and used textbooks,” he added.

Inayat Ali, a student from Chitral, told this scribe that he always bought books from the footpath booksellers because he could not buy new books. He said that he studied at a local college and also worked in second time at a private restaurant.

“I love reading books. Unfortunately, most people don’t know the joy of reading. I sometimes buy secondhand titles available online from 10 to 15 per cent but still those are unaffordable for poor like us. Peshawar is not like Lahore where on Sundays, the markets remain shut and the book vendors stake their titles on pavements and a beautiful book bazaar is set up from dawn to dusk and one can find gem in the dirt,” the bibliophile observed.

Books from the Diwan of Rahman Baba, autobiography of Bacha Khan and popular Pashto folk poets -- Khatir Afridi, Ghani Khan, Hamza Baba -- and classic Pashto, Urdu, Arabic and Persian tales also find place on the pavement bookstalls.

Abdur Rahim Swati, a student of Peshawar University, said why not Khyber Pakhtunkhwa should launch a Sunday book bazaar to promote reading culture.

He suggested that a place could be specified for the purpose where booksellers could sell titles at discounted rates.

Published in Dawn, January 21st, 2019