Hindustan Times ST (Jaipur) - Hindustan Times (Jaipur) - City
ICONIC KHAN MARKET BOOKSTORE SHUTS DOWN
Late on Sunday, as the city prepared to tuck into a good night’s sleep, Full Circle Bookstore announced it’s closing shutters at its Khan Market outlet, bringing down curtains on the 20-year-old store. “It came down to the fact that we could not afford the rent. We tried to negotiate with
It was at the 2012 Jaipur Literature Festival where Javed Akhtar said, about a gentleman who had just made an impassioned speech on the need for scientific temper, “If someone asks me to name three great intellectuals in the world, I would have to think about the other two.” That person was Richard Dawkins.
“That was the only time I met him,” says Akhtar, who on Friday received a text from Dawkins informing him that he was chosen as the recipient for this year’s Richard Dawkins Award, making him the only Indian to receive the honour.
Sharing his admiration for the evolutionary biologist and author, he says, “I remember reading The God Delusion, Dawkins’ ultimate work. This movement that he started with Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, etc., is in a very positive direction.”
Akhtar has always called out the danger that rationalists face in India. “I have been an atheist for so many years. But I had no idea that there were people who were writing about this. The God Delusion was the our landlord, but he didn’t agree to any relief,” says Priyanka Malhotra, director, Full Circle Bookstore. Their other landlords — in Greater Kailash and Nizamuddin — were more accommodating. “Quite a few shops are leaving Khan Market. We were not earning anything for three months. The losses are in lakhs,” she says.
The bookstore started in Santushti in 1998 and moved to its iconic address in 2000. It will first book, written by an atheist, that I had read,” recalls the writer.
According to the 2011 census, 0.27% of the Indian population stated that they don’t follow any religion. Akhtar says it is the societal restrictions that hold back many individuals from coming out, people he calls “closet atheists”. “There was a time when people with different sexual preferences were in the closet. In the exact way, there are a lot of atheists who are in the closet,” says the author, whose debate on spirituality and religion with spiritual guru Sadhguru is making rounds on the Internet.
Akhtar, however, feels that the increase in the number of rationalists is only natural. “The grip of religion is weakening with time. So, the future belongs to rationalists, who’re logical and have developed a scientific temper,” he ends. now open in Meharchand Market with an additional shop for children’s books.
Café Turtle will also make a comeback. “We will wait a month or two as we need to understand the (new) guidelines of operating a kitchen,” she says.
The bookstore will open any time in the coming week. “We already have the team and the stock; it’s just a question of doing up the store our way. Until the café opens, we plan to have a coffee machine in the bookshop so that it remains alive in some way,” she adds.