After 29 years, Walden to bow out of Somajiguda

Hard times befall famed book store; to shut shop on July 31

The Somajiguda outlet of Walden had opened its doors to bibliophiles on July 28, 1990.

Three days after its 29th birthday, Walden will move on.

The landmark bookshop is shifting focus to its two properties in Gachibowli and Banjara Hills and will wind up its Somajiguda shop on July 31.

“It has become unsustainable in the face of online book retailers and their deep discounts. I started this book shop as I am a book lover. This is hard on me. I am not able to sleep at night. It wasn’t an easy decision to make,” said V. Ramprasad about closing down the outlet.

He remembered the time when book lovers thronged Hyderabad’s first open format book store where they could browse and pick up books when it opened on July 28, 1990.

Adieu to troika

This development would bring down the curtains on the troika of home-grown book stores — A.A. Husain in Abids, Gangarams on S.D. Road and Walden in Somajiguda.

“A.A. Husain was a drug-store format bookstore where the buyer gave the name of a book and shop-hands retrieved it. Ours was the first book store in the city where readers could search or sit down to scroll through the pages,” said Mr. Ramprasad.

“I have been working here for 15 years. Now I will have to look for a job,” said Amruta, a shop-hand who guided generations of readers to the right shelves over the years.

Impact on book lovers

Initially, the book store used to be closed on Tuesdays. Before the anniversary of shop’s opening, Christmas and New Year, a small advertisement with red ribbon border used to appear in newspapers promising a discount on books. The Walden at Somajiguda had a profound impact on reading habits as summer vacations meant a family visit where books beyond the syllabus could be bought and devoured.

“At a time when Walden and Gangarams were the only bookshops in Hyderabad, his autobiography was always on top of the charts then. The book introduced me to the pleasures of pulsating business autobiographies/biographies before the likes of J. Paul Getty, Peter Drucker and Alfred Sloan dawned on me,” Sridhar Sattiraju, a bibliophile recently wrote as a tribute to auto maven Lee Iacocca.