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| Bookseller Nalini Chettur (photo: The Hindu) | |
In the 40 years that Nalini Chettur has been operating Giggles: The Biggest Little Bookshop in a 100-square-foot space in the Indian city Chennai, her business "has grown from its first avatar as a 'book boutique' of handicrafts and nonfiction about India (to feed Nalini's own hunger for knowledge about her country), to stock literary fiction, much of it Indian, and a proliferation of children's' writing.... What hasn't changed is Nalini's obsessive commitment to hand-pick every book she showcases. 'I am elitist,' she unabashedly states, 'People write books today like baking cakes--in a few hours. I don't quite cater to that idea, though I know it sells,'" the Hindu reported in a feature headlined "Giggles and good books."
After beginning her day "at five every morning with a glass of water, the chanting of Sanskrit mantras and some calisthenics that stretch her bookseller wingspan," she then reads: "There's an instinct I've honed. I just know whether a new book will work or not. I was pushing Midnight's Children long before the Booker made it famous. It's a sixth sense."
Regarding her teetering book piles as she makes her picks for the day, she observes: "There is a method to the madness in here, I assure you.... I love this part. It's like making a curry--you put in a little bit of this, and a little bit of that--some translated poetry beside the President's book, some Indian children's writing beside an Australian, two-time Booker winner, and my favorite book, The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly, for today--the curry is new each day."