Reading while travelling, especially in the train, is always a pleasurable thing to do. While travelling alone, books can be your best companion and a good way to pass the time. Some people start a conversation with fellow passengers, become friends and chat throughout the journey. But for others, books are their friends, especially during long distance travel by train.
Bookstores at the railways stations and platforms are becoming a rare sight nowadays. But there used to be a time when we found more bookstores than eateries. There were even vendors selling books, magazines and newspapers in push-carts on the railway platforms. Sometimes people also sold books, newspapers and magazines in the train. But now we only see people selling various types of junk food, water bottles, key chains and earphones, and very rarely books.
Doesn’t this show that our reading habits are dying? Now when I look around the compartment I see several people glued to their smartphones and some even keep it on full volume without using their earphones. Worse is the sight of kids, including toddlers, watching shorts on smartphones and their parents feeding them.
Book lovers don’t just love buying books, they are also attached to the bookstores; sometimes even with the persons who sell the books, especially if it is an old bookstore. That personal connection with places and persons at the bookstores makes buying books even more enjoyable and memorable.
It is a thrilling experience picking up something to read before boarding a train. I always do this whenever I get a chance to go to Madras Central (now Chennai Central) where there is a Higginbothams – one of my favorite bookstores. The Higginbothams main bookstore situated on Mount Road was started in 1844. Later several branches were opened across South India. I am not sure when exactly the Higginbothams bookstore was opened at the Central station, there are two of them inside the premises. The bigger one is to the west of the main entrance, and the smaller one is in the middle part of the station opposite to the platforms 2A to 4.
In 2006, the bigger bookstore was gutted due to a fire accident at the station. I have been visiting Central station since 2000 but am unable to recall what the bookstore looked like then. But after 2006, it must have been renovated as the bookstore got a new look and was quite stunning at that time. In a section on the ground floor, newspapers and magazines were sold and we could enter the bookstore through a narrow path. To the left, there was a staircase and more books were displayed on the first floor. During my subsequent visits, I noticed that the first floor was closed to the public and mostly used as storage space.
In this fast changing world, we tend to forget things easily if we do not document them. Sometime in 2023, I took a photo of the bookstore on my mobile phone. After two years, in January 2025, I went there again and clicked a photo of the bookstore. This time, the first floor looked pretty much non-operational. No lights were on and there were no books on the shelves. Just after about 10 months, in December 2025, I was shocked to notice that there was no bookstore in that place. It was replaced by an ice-cream parlour!
I looked around anxiously and decided to take a walk inside the station to check if they had moved it elsewhere. Next to the cloakroom there was a kiosk with a board saying Higginbothams – the letters illuminated by a white light on a black plastic board. I was relieved but at the same time disappointed that such an iconic bookstore was now reduced to a cramped kiosk. I went inside and looked around. There was hardly any space to move since there were already two people inside. Books were kept all over the floor. I felt like I was standing in a lift full of people. I found a copy of Madras Rediscovered by S. Muthiah in front of me. I picked it up, paid up and came out. I took a couple of photographs from afar and quickly walked away to catch my train.