A Gandhi Road Repair trail: A walk through Ahmedabad's book binding cluster
Fig 1: Mohsinbhai in his shop, surrounded by the binding-verse A market is a place where skills compete with each other to command the best price. A market is also a place where the customer gets to see the competing skills to decide on the one she wants for the job at hand. “No one in the market, can do what I can do” " No one in the market can do what I can do”, said my book-binder. I stopped dead in my tracks with just a few hours to go into our second repair walk in Ahmedabad’s old city. My book-binder is unavailable today! We are supposed to go to the area around ‘Fernandes bridge’ on Gandhi Road. We are going to interact with repairers who do binding of old books. Fernandes bridge is the seconds’ book market in Ahmedabad’s old city. The book-binders are located in the area around. This area also has a flourishing stationery market. The book-binder I want to visit in the market, is not in Ahmedabad. There is a death in his family and he is away at his native for the last 3 ...
