A.S Wheeler and Co. The name synonymous with books at railway stations. Conspicuously seen as a wheeled cart or as a shop with stacks of books, “Wheeler” has been literally making the railway junta read. Tacitly, of course!
The Wheeler kiosk at Howrah Station
I noticed this small revolution on wheels on my first journey by train some 6 years back, at the Jalandhar station. How ironic it is that one does not notice most things at one’s home station. Clearly, the reason why I never saw it at the New Delhi, Old Delhi or Hazrat Nizammudin Stations. Not to overwhelm you guys, but there are a dozen more stations in Delhi, just that I've never boarded a train from them.
I get off the train at the Jalandhar station and Wheeler is the first thing I notice at the station apart from the mindbogglingly clean state the station is in. No, seriously! I cannot say that about other stations, but you've got to see the Jalandhar and Amritsar stations. They are no model stations. The toilets there are bad as well. But there isn't a speck of dust to be found on the platform. You are scared of setting your foot on the platform for the fear of setting off a certain turbaned gentleman. But 'sardarji', that is the only way I get to alight and deboard the train.
Now If I am at the station, and I have to wait for a train, I am like a restless 5 year old. You literally have to catch hold of my hand and make me sit down. And Jalandhar was no different. I was there roaming and 'dirtying' (according to the huge 'sardarji') the platform. So after parrying off the gallons of free-flowing abuses in 'theth' punjabi ( 'th' in 'theth' pronounced as 'th' in 'thanda' pani) even my dad would have difficulty understanding, I settled behind the Wheeler kiosk with a version of Ramayana I had never seen before.
Unable to hold my attention, I put the book right back. I settled with a famous Hindi comic which I was seeing after ages. What I was more amazed with that day was the the collection of books that the kiosk was carrying. There were 1st hands, 2nd hands, 3rd hands, 4th hands of authors ranging from Enid Blyton to Jefferey Archer to Indian authors. There were magazines in regional languages, newspapers, religious books, there was just everything there. And there were people there too. Reading, browsing and purchasing. Wheeler had made this possible. In a country where the accessibility of clean water is a question we have to answer everyday, Wheeler had made sure that there were no brows raised when it came to easy and cheap access to reading material. They were at least making the junta at railway stations read. Not a small number any day, taking into account the number of people who use the rail network.
We might be crying our throats hoarse on TV channels about making a change, and here there were Wheeler and Higginbothams ( What Wheeler is in the North, East & West; Higginbothams is in the South) already doing that. With most of us unaware. Even of their name! And they've been doing it since ages. From the time of our grandparents and even before. The world wide web might reach any corner of the world, but Wheeler and Higginbothams will always be there, making an impact felt in a way our "Web 2.0-addicted-brains" will never understand!
P.S Although I've gone on to rant about my first tryst with Wheeler, and the fact that I've seen it at almost 10 other stations I've been to, the idea to pen this down struck my thick-skinned cranium only when I saw the Higginbothams kiosk at Chennai Central. Cheers to that!
The Wheeler kiosk at Howrah StationI noticed this small revolution on wheels on my first journey by train some 6 years back, at the Jalandhar station. How ironic it is that one does not notice most things at one’s home station. Clearly, the reason why I never saw it at the New Delhi, Old Delhi or Hazrat Nizammudin Stations. Not to overwhelm you guys, but there are a dozen more stations in Delhi, just that I've never boarded a train from them.
I get off the train at the Jalandhar station and Wheeler is the first thing I notice at the station apart from the mindbogglingly clean state the station is in. No, seriously! I cannot say that about other stations, but you've got to see the Jalandhar and Amritsar stations. They are no model stations. The toilets there are bad as well. But there isn't a speck of dust to be found on the platform. You are scared of setting your foot on the platform for the fear of setting off a certain turbaned gentleman. But 'sardarji', that is the only way I get to alight and deboard the train.
Now If I am at the station, and I have to wait for a train, I am like a restless 5 year old. You literally have to catch hold of my hand and make me sit down. And Jalandhar was no different. I was there roaming and 'dirtying' (according to the huge 'sardarji') the platform. So after parrying off the gallons of free-flowing abuses in 'theth' punjabi ( 'th' in 'theth' pronounced as 'th' in 'thanda' pani) even my dad would have difficulty understanding, I settled behind the Wheeler kiosk with a version of Ramayana I had never seen before.
Unable to hold my attention, I put the book right back. I settled with a famous Hindi comic which I was seeing after ages. What I was more amazed with that day was the the collection of books that the kiosk was carrying. There were 1st hands, 2nd hands, 3rd hands, 4th hands of authors ranging from Enid Blyton to Jefferey Archer to Indian authors. There were magazines in regional languages, newspapers, religious books, there was just everything there. And there were people there too. Reading, browsing and purchasing. Wheeler had made this possible. In a country where the accessibility of clean water is a question we have to answer everyday, Wheeler had made sure that there were no brows raised when it came to easy and cheap access to reading material. They were at least making the junta at railway stations read. Not a small number any day, taking into account the number of people who use the rail network.
We might be crying our throats hoarse on TV channels about making a change, and here there were Wheeler and Higginbothams ( What Wheeler is in the North, East & West; Higginbothams is in the South) already doing that. With most of us unaware. Even of their name! And they've been doing it since ages. From the time of our grandparents and even before. The world wide web might reach any corner of the world, but Wheeler and Higginbothams will always be there, making an impact felt in a way our "Web 2.0-addicted-brains" will never understand!
P.S Although I've gone on to rant about my first tryst with Wheeler, and the fact that I've seen it at almost 10 other stations I've been to, the idea to pen this down struck my thick-skinned cranium only when I saw the Higginbothams kiosk at Chennai Central. Cheers to that!
3 comments:
Wheeler was 'the place to be to get hold of comics that were unaffordable elsewhere. Forgot to pack a book for the journey? Just buy one rfom the wheeler 'counter' as I used to call it. Gone are those days though...
spellcheck. i meant from not rfom
I am not sure if those days are gone though!
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