If you happen to blink at the wrong time, you’ll miss Rohan’s Bookstore. It’s that tiny. The space that used to be a chocolate shop (and perhaps, before that, a cupboard that opened into Narnia) is now crammed to the ceiling with about 2 million rupees worth of literature. Its owner, Rohan Kanannagara won’t be able to tell you how many books he has, but he knows just where each one of them is. It’s a novel thing, having to stand outside the bookstore because there’s no room for anything but books inside. But all the craning and bending is worth it – Rohan, it turns out, is Liberty Plaza’s best kept secret.
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Rohan competes with much larger bookstores by being something of a specialist – he says his collection of spiritual books, biographies and memoirs is truly something to boast of – and what he doesn’t have, he’ll order for you. Outside, in the corridor he has what must be a bookstore’s bread and butter, the Enid Blytons and Stephanie Meyers; plus a slew of Man Booker Prize winning authors, including Hilary Mantel and Arvind Adiga.
But inside, in the stacks that tower to the ceiling are some rarer finds. Many are of a spiritual bent. There’s Karen Armstrong (the ex-nun whose profound, exhaustive meditations on religion span several books) and there’s Julian Barnes (whose book ‘Nothing to be Afraid of’ begins with one of my favourite lines, “I don’t believe in God, but I miss him.”) In another stack, Obama jostles for space beside Queen Noor, Aung San Suu Kyi and Carmen Bin Laden.
Rohan takes pride in his collection, having been in the book business for near on 27 years. 23 of these were spent working in the KVG bookstore in Liberty Plaza itself, while the last four have been expended on running Rohan’s.
“This is a different concept,” he says, comparing his business model to similar ones in places like Singapore, where real estate doesn’t come cheap. In a time where every bookstore seems to want to put in a coffee shop and sofas, Rohan’s is a back to basics approach. It keeps his overheads low, and customers have the pleasure of going on a treasure hunt. Of course, they sometimes have to ask him to step out before they can begin.
Rohan takes great pleasure in running his own business. He says he enjoys being able to bypass all the red tape and simply let personal inclination and client requirements dictate his purchases. He frequently restocks, both importing and purchasing books locally, and says he likes to select books on subjects that “people are talking about now.” Rohan has buyers from as far out as Jaffna visiting him, and not just for the bookstore.
At his home in Nugegoda, the father of two has a sizeable collection of out of print and rare books, many of which are Sri Lankan publications. He lends these out often, as reference books, he says naming one written on the 1958 Insurgency and another that goes further back to a colonised Ceylon.
Rohan knows his books well, and if you’re willing to experiment, is sure to be able to recommend something new and interesting. Clearly, this is more than just a job to him. Does he want to get bigger? Maybe not. “I’m ok, I’m happy with this,” he says, contentedly. |
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