ON A TYPICAL WORKING DAY, 77-year-old SA Govindaraju can be found at the solitary desk in his shop, surrounded by overflowing shelves and the faint scent of aging paper and binding glue, reading something to refresh his memory of it, or organising some clippings in a file. Govindaraju is the proprietor of an unassuming establishment tucked away on 2nd Cross Street in RA Puram, Chennai, between a lawyer’s office and a temple. His shop, known simply as Rare Books, houses books, magazines, clippings, illustrations, posters and photographs—a haphazard collection gathered over more than 50 years.
Govindaraju began his collection by picking up Penguin paperbacks as a 23-year-old, a time when he was also starting out in his then primary career as a lawyer. “When I initially started collecting books, there was a small shop near the Mylapore clock tower where I would always find something interesting,” he recounted. “I found The Imperial Gazette of India there, lying around among second-hand college textbooks and novels. Finding a copy of it in Chennai now is impossible.”
Govindaraju’s hoarding instinct soon spilled over into other objects as well: in addition to 5,000 books, his shop now has 10,000 assorted clippings of advertisements, comics, illustrations and photographs. Among the variety of material preserved in his files are intricate drawings of temples by Tamil magazine artist Silpi, an original copy of the magazine Harijan from 1940 and, reaching even further into the past, a hard-bound copy of Harper’s from 1879. He also proudly showed off a tram ticket, measuring five inches by one inch, with a list of stops on the borders for the conductor to punch holes through, from the days when Madras had a tram service. “The city was quiet and cozy then,” he said. “Travelling was a leisurely activity then and no one was in a hurry.” Now writers stop by the shop to research the city’s past so that they can recreate it in their stories, while filmmakers seek out images to inspire their sets.
Govindaraju’s tastes often extend to the quirky: he dearly prizes his collection of Lux soap advertisements, featuring actresses such as Madhuri Dixit and Madhubala, neatly cut out of magazines and pasted onto thin cardboard. Another file has 555 cigarette advertisements; Tamil magazines; copies of Swadesamitran, one of the first Tamil language newspapers; and cricket stars in endorsements through the years—Tiger Pataudi endorsing Gwalior suits, Gavaskar endorsing Forhan’s toothpaste, and cricketers Kapil Dev and Sachin Tendulkar holding up mugs of Boost.
While his collecting might appear indiscriminate, his particular fascination for advertisements has drawn Govindaraju’s shop unexpected attention from representatives of corporations who heard that he had clippings of their companies’ old print advertisements. Among the companies who have sent representatives to the shop are Amrutanjan, Mahindra and Enfield, all of whom were interested in purchasing ad clippings from Govindaraju’s collection, as a way of preserving their own corporate history. “They like to keep these in their archives you see,” Govindaraju explained. “It’s their brand and they are proud of their corporate history.”
At the risk of offending customers, Govindaraju remains fussy about those to whom he sells his material. Determined that books reach caring hands, he sometimes turns down people if he is unconvinced that they will take care of them. “I feel that these books are useful despite their age and I only sell to someone if I am certain that they will use it,” he said. “I’ve refused to sell to some people even though they’ve offered lots of money.”