Harshita Varma’s job means that while she lives out of a suitcase for most of the year, Jaipur is home, and there’s one bookstore in the city that’s become her go-to. “It is the only place where I’ve felt seen as a reader,” she says, about Rajat Book Corner, the independent store she’s been frequenting for two years now. The first time she visited, the owner Mohit Batra spent 45 minutes with her over tea, talking about books. The next time she walked in, he had five titles pulled out for her that he knew she’d like. This is not a surprising anecdote about independent bookstores, but then Varma goes on to describe the book club Batra founded at the store, called Two Pages. The reading circle draws in a bookish crowd, many of them from the corporate world. “It brought together a community of readers in Jaipur. All quiet people, who think deeply, are introverts, and who won’t otherwise go out anywhere,” she says. “Interestingly, it has become a centre for therapy, too.” The club makes space for conversations around the difficult and the taboo — postpartum struggles, grief, relationship and career troubles — and these spill out into other rooms, with people finding friends they can depend on.
Published: May 23, 2026 12:36 am
Source: The Hindu — Read original