A quaint book shop and its quiet keeper

From the portals of Prabodha, Baigent, all grace and sophistication, promoted the reading habit among the city’s youth of that time.

May 18, 2015 05:48 pm | Updated November 16, 2021 07:12 pm IST - VIJAYAWADA:

Like an aged parent, Vijayawada’s famous Prabodha Book Centre has shrunk in size and sits in a corner. But it will remain a vital part of Vijayawada’s history because it was one of the institutions which gave a cosmopolitan touch to a city that had had the image of a big village.

The man who played a vital role in making Prabodha a part of Vijayawada’s urban culture was a friendly New Zealander named Eric Baigent, who had come to the city on a missionary work in 1964. It was he who established the book centre at its earlier premises on Gopalareddy Road. This man from Down Under was not a celebrity, nor was he a nonentity. He was in fact a librarian.

From the portals of Prabodha, Baigent, all grace and sophistication, promoted the reading habit among the city’s youth of that time. The Sixties being a decade of cultural ferment all over the world, Prabodha became a one-stop shop for all genres of English literature – apart from the books on Gospel and a wide-range of greeting cards.

In fact, Prabodha was the only niche book store in the city then. Its stacks were full of books from all the leading publishing houses of the country and the world. The other book shops in the city used to stock only school and college text-books.

“Prabodha was a unique book store. You could spend a good amount of time browsing and then walk away without buying anything. Eric never used to chide us,” recalls senior lawyer S.M. Sultan, a frequent visitor.

Vijayawada’s Sixties set remember that many youngsters from the moneyed and privileged sections of society used to vie to be in the company of Baigent, in part to enjoy the nuances of etiquette and his sophisticated wit. Some of Vijayawada’s current lot of successful entrepreneurs and industrialists like V Prabhu Kishore of Varun Motors, V. Prabhu Prasad of Fusion Motors, Chukkapalli Prasad of the eponymous group of companies, Ganesh of Liners India and the late P. Chandrasehhar of Hotel Manorama were members of the library, which used to be an adjunct to the book store.

“Thanks to Eric, a love for the English language was all-pervasive in the store. It was at Prabodha that I learnt the importance of silence,” says Nandipati Radhakrishna, a chartered accountant.

Come winter, the atmosphere around the store transformed into a pleasant ambience with a stately row of trees. It was under these trees that youngsters gathered in the evenings for chats about the life, literature and politics, with the sweet melody of Boney M’s Mary’s Boy Child Jesus Christ playing in the background.

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