Kanupriya Dhingra, "Old Delhi's Parallel Book Bazaar" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

Oct 11, 2024

Kanupriya Dhingra, an Assistant Professor at O.P. Jindal Global University, dives into the vibrant world of Old Delhi's Daryaganj Sunday Book Market. She explores the spatial dynamics shaped by sellers, buyers, and civic authorities, highlighting the resilience of booksellers in an ever-changing landscape. Dhingra shares captivating stories of buyer motivations and the unique interactions within this bustling bazaar. With insights into the historical significance of the market and its cultural role, she illustrates the joy and community that books bring to urban life.

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Intro

00:00 • 2min

Exploring the Dynamics of Old Delhi's Book Bazaars

02:13 • 2min

Exploring the Elements Format: A Blend of Narrative and Academic Insight

04:21 • 3min

The Literary Tapestry of Patrik Itabazaar

07:47 • 10min

Exploring Buyer Dynamics in Old Delhi's Book Bazaar

17:30 • 4min

The Transition of Delhi's Book Bazaar

21:05 • 22min

Joyful Discoveries: The Heart of Literary Scholarship

42:45 • 8min

Old Delhi's Parallel Book Bazaar (Cambridge UP, 2024) looks at Old Delhi's Daryaganj Sunday Book Market, popularly known as Daryaganj Sunday Patri Kitab Bazaar, as a parallel location for books and a site of resilience and possibilities. The first section studies the bazaar's spatiality - its location, relocation, and spatialization. Three actors play a major role in creating and organising this spatiality: the sellers, the buyers, and the civic authorities. The second section narrativizes the biographies of the booksellers of Daryaganj to offer a map of the hidden social and material networks that support the informal modes of bookselling. Amidst order and chaos, using their specialised knowledge, Daryaganj booksellers create distinctive mechanisms to serve the diverse reading public of Delhi. Using ethnography, oral interviews, and rhythmanalysis, this Element tells a story of urban aspirations, state-citizen relations, official and unofficial cultural economies, and imaginations of other viable worlds of being and believing.

Dr Kanupriya Dhingra is an Assistant Professor and Assistant Dean at the Jindal School of Languages and Literature, O.P. Jindal Global University (India). She researches the History of the Book and Print Cultures, focusing on Delhi (India), from an ethnographic perspective. She earned her doctorate under the Felix Scholarship Fund from SOAS, University of London in 2021, on her dissertation titled “Daryaganj’s Parallel Book History”, which became this Element. She has also published in journals such as The Caravan, Himal SouthAsian and Seminar Magazine. She is also deeply interested in Hindi, Punjabi, and Urdu poetry, especially that of Amrita Pritam, and continues to research and translate it. Her creative writing and translations have appeared in Indian Literature (A Sahitya Akademi imprint), Scroll, Indian Writers Forum, Guftgu, Aainanagar, and Antiserious. Currently, she is working on translations of Krishna Sobti and Amrita Pritam.

SM Khalid is a doctoral student at the University of Oxford, working comparatively on postcolonial satire in South Asia in Hindi, Urdu and English.

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