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 days. The plan for him is to come back but he is uncertain, given the traffic on the highway. I despair. I have a group of 12 young participants making their way to the market for a walk in a couple of hours.

Fig 2: Participant gather at the Gheekanta Metro Station near Exit 1

He gives me another person’s address in the Haran Wali pol nearby. But this person does contracting of binding works. That means he takes orders of copy books and other stationery meant for writing, drawing, accounting as well as exam papers. Will he be able to tell us something about repairing old books? The answer was ‘not sure!'. We were going to find out when we met him at his workshop. 

I am headed to the Haran wali pol located near Khadia char-rasta. The workshop is in the basement, deep inside the pol. He has a host of machines for printing parallel lines and binding copy-books and exam sheets. The whole experience is not only interesting but useful as says he can bind my old books too.

Fig 3: Sajjidbhai offers these colour combinations for repairing my old books

I choose from the colour combinations that he provides. The colour of the bound seam of the book needs to match with the cover of the book. The options are limited and he doesn't normally do this kind of one-off repair of books. But he is generous with his time and shows us around, I breathe a sense of relief. Having made the first contact, I am emboldened to explore the market, while making my way back to the shop of my first binder near Fernandes Bridge. 

Fig 4: The Shop at Haran Wali Pol is run by Sajjidbhai. They are specialists in binding copy books and exam papers.

Fig 5: Piles of copy books and exam papers ready to be sent out to the customers

This is Gandhi Road, it is a hub for many things other than binding and stationery. There are cycle parts shops, electrical-parts and electronic-parts shops, ayurveda shops selling medicines. The repair shops are hiding among the parts-sellers, in plain view, but very easy to miss. Walking along the market, I am gripped with a sense of apprehension. I am keeping my fingers crossed. We visited the seconds’ books stalls below the Fernandes bridge. Some of the participants are interested in the books. At 100 or 200 INR each, these books are a steal! If you bring them back to him with the bill, he will refund you 50% of the price you paid at the beginning!.

During the examination months, there is a queue of students who come here to borrow academic books for short periods (like for a month or two) till the examination are finished. Post this, they come back to return the books and claim the same 50% discount which are available on the non-academic books. What a lovely economy! It maximizes the use of each book. What do we do with school books that have already served their purpose? Some people pass it on to friends, cousins and others who are in need. Here is a market, that has created a business model from this.

Fig 6: Mohsinbhai and his colleague work as they explain the process to us

The binder’s shop is in the narrow lane, opposite the Khadi Bhandar on the edge of Fernandes bridge. I make my way up the narrow stairs and to my surprise the shop is open! He says he was lucky with the traffic and reached early. So he headed to the shop. He asks us to settle down, they need to go for their prayers nearby. We wait surrounded in a universe of binding. He is the only one in the market that works with repair of old books. Sometimes he gets religious books that are close to 100 years old. He has a person on call, who does the photocopying for him. Anything that old is first photocopied and the original is left aside. Sometimes the only option is to dismantle the old book, page by page and laminate the pages individually. Only if the paper is still strong enough, there is a machine that punches holes in them and a hand stitching holds the thing together.

Fig 7: The participants try their hand at the machine, which punches holes in the paper

As we wait, we look at the piles of books, cardboard, paper, glue plastic and the whole paraphernalia that is essential for this trade. They buy glue in bulk, 10 liters in each bucket and they use upto one bucket a day. Once empty the buckets are sent back to the supplier to be filled and returned to them.

They come back from the prayers and start work. We witness the skill by which they stitch the bunches of paper together. We see practiced hands neatly use the glue to paste the whole thing together. They also do binding of new copies and books. Pages of the book are bound together using a special thread. Holes are punched in the papers and a needle is used to pass the thread through. He asks me to try and pull apart the thread. I can't do it. The thread is very strong. After they pass the thread through the paper, they use a special knot to tie it down. The thread is now so tight that we cannot pinch it up using our fingers. The location of the thread and stitch is reinforced by glueing a special paper. The stitch and the knot is tightened down on this paper, making it virtually unbreakable.

Fig 7: Mohsinbhai gives us a demo of his machine which punches holes in the paper

But it's the repair of the old books that we are interested in. This he explains is more than just skill. It is a matter of judgement. The age of the paper, thickness of the book, the extent to which the book needs to open, the colour of cloth and paper used on the cover, all have a role to play. They normally peel off the paper from the cover of the old book and use it as a cover on the newly-bound book, this helps retain the character of the old book. Peeling the paper from the cover of the old book is a skill, one cannot afford to get tears or cracks. He lets the participants try the machine to punch holes in the books. It works with a foot-pedal that one has to push down with a clean force. Only then the punch goes through the reams of paper without getting stuck in it. He explains that the participants must bring a book that they really care about to learn to use this machine. The push on the foot pedal has to be strong and clean, it cannot be uncertain or with any second thoughts. 

At 6:30 pm, We are ready to leave but we have a sense of the skills and judgement needed to repair old books. We also know that the skills needed to bind books are similar yet significantly different to the skill and judgement needed for repair of old books. Repair of old books needs skill, judgement and precision in equal measure.

The participants de-brief at the Lucky hotel near Jaali wali masjid at the end of Relief road. The maska-bun and tea here is as good as the one at New Irani hotel, if not better. Sitting in between graves of saints on one side and a Hussain painting on the other, provides the ideal context to ruminate about the day’s experience. We part ways having shared some moments of learning which will stay with us for a while. 

Fig 8: Old books bound and repaired to it's original condition, possibly better than it's original condition

We acknowledge contributions by @_hardlk_ and @himadri-urbanist, @purna,repaircafebangalore

The repairers in the walk are Sajjidbhai@Noble Book Biding Works, Haranwali Pol, Khadia Charrasta, Gandhi Road, Ahmedabad; (M):9727866928 and Mohsinbhai@ New Paramaunt Binding Works, Kalpana Cinema (Kanak Chambers) Gali, Gandhi Road, Ahmedabad. (M):9879682397. Visit Ahmedabad Repair Map by @repaircafe.bengaluru