What Makes a Bookstore More Than a Bookstore?

I spent some time at Kunzum in GK and happened to meet its founder, Ajay Jain.

I had seen his name around the store before. This time, I left with a copy of his memoir Charlie's Boys, signed by him, and with a better understanding of the idea behind the place in which I had bought it.

Bookstores are easy to describe in functional terms.

There are shelves. There are books. You browse, choose something, pay and leave.

But the bookstores people become attached to rarely work only like that.

They give you reasons to linger.

At Kunzum, those reasons are everywhere: author conversations, book launches, discussions, people meeting over books, and the possibility of walking in for one thing and discovering something entirely unrelated.

That ecosystem matters.

Delhi NCR has no shortage of places from which one can buy a book. A reader can have almost anything delivered home without leaving the sofa. Which makes the continued existence of physical bookstores interesting in itself.

Their value can no longer just be access to inventory.

It has to be discovery, conversation, serendipity and a certain sense of belonging.

Talking to Ajay made me think about how deliberately Kunzum has tried to build around that idea. The bookstore becomes the setting, but books become the excuse for people to encounter one another.

That afternoon, I had gone in as a customer.

I came away with a signed book, a conversation I hadn't planned for, and another reminder of why I keep returning to bookstores even when buying books has never been easier.

Perhaps the best bookstores are not simply places that sell you your next book.

They become part of the story of how you found it.