Beyond Nilkhet: Dhaka’s second-hand book markets
The second-hand book market is a buoyant one and there are places in Dhaka, other than Nilkhet, where your desire to buy books meets affordability. With a keen eye and some bargaining skills, it is possible to make a deal at these places.
PURANA PALTAN
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. The Purana Paltan book market is quite paltry in size. It's located on Topkhana Road, across the street from the Baitul Mukarram National Mosque, basking under the shade of the metro construction. The shops stand on the footpath and the feeling of congestion is very real but they make up for it with their collection.
The market is surprisingly busy for such a compact size and every person who walks by cannot help but steal a look. In the large pile of old books, one can hardly track the title they are looking for. But setting aside their collection, the best thing about this place is how reasonable the prices are.
"I bought four books at Tk 80. The shopkeeper said to me whatever I pick, it's Tk 20 only. I got classics of Bangla literature including Kazi Nazrul Islam and Rabindranath Tagore. That's unbelievable," said an excited Tahsin Ahmed, who added that he was going to scout the market a bit more and see what else he could find.
An avid reader in his early 50s was seen buying 67 books at once! And it only cost him less than Tk 2,000. "He's a regular customer. He works at the secretariat and likes to collect. He comes by every few weeks and always buys in such bulk," explained Md Anwar Hossain, one of the shopkeepers.
Unlike Nilkhet, this place only offers old books.
"If we start keeping new books then we will have to charge a lot more. And then there is this huge gap between the prices. The walking customers turn away when they hear high prices so we just deal in used books," added Md Anwar Hossain.
STADIUM GATE BOOK MARKET AT MIRPUR-2
Starting at Gate #5 of Sher-E-Bangla National Cricket Stadium at Mirpur, this book market expands towards the Mirpur-10 roundabout.
Along the footpaths, the market is an alluring walk for the bookworms as here the stalls are on both sides of the walkway. The specialty of this place is that it has a large collection of academic books.
Non-academic books -- both Bangla and English novels and with some luck, one can find rare books here as well. There are some new books too but the collection of used books outweighs the new books by a hefty number.
So, where do all these books come from? A young seller by the name of Md Babu says, "We have a few parties," which is another way of saying "I know a guy who knows another guy."
"Sometimes students come to sell their used books. Sometimes people return novels after they have read them. We are more than happy to buy those. But mostly we buy from the parties. There is no hard and fast rule," he elaborated.
Both of these markets start at 10:00am and keep going till 10:00pm. Seven days a week, without any holidays. If you have a list of books to buy, you can certainly achieve that but the wiser method is to start browsing with an open mind with plenty of time on your hands. If you browse long enough and can bargain properly, you can strike an amazing deal for sure.
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