CONSERVATION: PRESERVING AN ERA
As I stepped out of the Pioneer Book House on a bright afternoon earlier this year, I wasn’t very sure what would be the future of the bookstore. Internationally acclaimed writer Maniza Naqvi had been posting extensively on Facebook about how she landed at the once much-sought-after book house and her adventures in cleaning the dusty books and racks, bringing them to next-to-perfect order, possibly to attract customers.
She felt sad that the once iconic bookstore was closing down for lack of business. Pioneer Book House is part of Karachi’s landscape. It could not die like that. “Something had to be done to rescue the Book House,” said Maniza Naqvi. Zafar Hussain, owner of the Book House and a fiery activist himself, was thinking of selling it. Despite her best efforts, one wasn’t sure if he would be interested in retaining it.
My doubts were put to sleep when I met Zafar Sahib recently. I found him more excited and relaxed. “Maniza’s hard work seems to have paid off,” he said. “My family has decided to retain it. I am now planning to invest more into this bookshop with new ideas and a better marketing strategy. We cannot let go of this shop built by our ancestors.”
Karachi’s oldest bookstore is being revamped and refurbished with a passion
Pioneer Book House, mostly known for law books, faces a similar fate that many other such bookshops and organisations are struggling with: everything going on-line and the inability to adapt to the new trends in e-marketing to retain a book business. Perched in the one-fourth area of Sami Chambers on the bustling M.A. Jinnah Road, with Dow Medical College, S.M. Science College and SIUT in the vicinity, Pioneer Book House has been a book-lover’s paradise, especially law students. If you could not find a book in the entire city, you could be sure to find it at the Pioneer Book House which was mainly known for law books but had other books as well.
But this paradise was predicated on a demand for printed law material which was the bread and butter of the Book House. Sadly, the demand had now diminished. “There was a time when throngs would line up in front of our Book House hours before shutter-up time at 11am for a printed copy of either the import or any other policy, or sales tax forms, which was a roaring business at the Book House,” says Zafar Sahib. “There used to be audits of the tax system and we sold the forms required for it. All that came to an end once everything went online.”
Zafar Sahib claims that the tax system was once very similar to the Indian system which meant that there was a demand for loads of books from India. “Many lawyers and advocates would come looking for such books as we used to import them from India. We had a thriving business. During the Musharraf era, the tax system became more on the lines of the Australian tax system. I remember most of our imported books becoming redundant; left packed in boxes as suddenly the demand for them ebbed.”