Dispatches from Champaca: April 2023

Hello fellow book lover,

Did you read anything interesting in April? At the store, we spent much of our time unpacking book orders, rearranging shelves, and curating displays which led to the most exciting results. We now have two shelves for children’s books – Indian and international – which are packed with a wide-range of picture books, chapter books, and even activity books.

Through April, we also focused on highlighting books on India’s Partition. Partition is a monumental event that continues to shape politics in the sub-continent, and we thought the best way to engage with this crucial piece of history was through books and literature. We read stories across fiction and non-fiction of people who travelled across the border and were witnesses to the wreckage, the trauma inherited by subsequent generations, and how community, caste, and gender played a role in the violence that accompanied partition.

Putting this collection together for our readers and highlighting them in our store was a meaningful curation exercise for us as a bookstore. In the coming months we hope to actively curate many such displays and collections.

Interestingly, one of our favourite books from this lot was a book for children – Mukand and Riaz by Nina Sabnani! This picture book, which talks about friendship during times of war, moved us and left us feeling hopeful about the power of love. 

Do you have a favourite children’s book that you keep going back to? Tell us in the comments of this blog post!

In other news, as long-time admirers of Yogesh Maitreya’s work we were honoured to launch his memoir at our stores in Bangalore and Goa. His memoir Water in a Broken Pot is a brutally honest and vulnerable account of his life. Hearing him speak about how caste identity plays out in Universities, his life as a daily-wage factory worker, the dreams that keep him going, and what Rohit Vemula’s demise meant for the anti-caste movement was discerning, making us reflect on how our identities define the kind of life we lead. 

This month, we leave you with our Indian Partition reading list and a selection of books on caste that bring us voices from the margins. 

Until next time, happy reading!