Kalam's books in demand at bookstores

A day after former President Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, a scientist, scholar and an able administrator, died of cardiac arrest at Shillong, Meghalaya, bookstores across the City reported a big demand for his books as well as his biographies.

 While a few hurriedly walked into the stores to grab their copies on Tuesday, some others sent in their request over phones and emails to the shopkeepers to keep a copy of the books reserved. Senior citizens were seen picking books authored by the ‘Missile Man of India’ from the shelves to keep a copy of it for posterity while youngsters did so to take home a message.

Krishna, storekeeper, The Bookworm, told Deccan Herald that he received a couple of calls since morning asking him to reserve copies of the books authored by Dr Kalam. “We have sold close to five copies of the book since morning. There is a demand for the ‘Ignited Minds’ authored by him and his autobiography ‘Wings of Fire’,” Krishna added. “Many customers called in the morning enquiring if the books penned by Kalam were in stock and that they would like to buy a copy,” he said.

The manager at Sapna Book House on Residency Road said that as against a normal sale of two to three copies of Kalam’s works, the store sold over ten copies on Tuesday. “It is mostly the youth who bought these books. They tend to buy the biographies and not books that he wrote,” he added. Sapna Book House in Jayanagar reported brisk business. The store sold over 100 copies in one day.

While the store staff said that they sold 50 copies of ‘Ignited Minds’ alone, ‘Wings of Fire’, India 2020, ‘Mission India’ were also in demand. It was mostly children and young adults who were seen picking these copies from their shelves, the staff said. 

Owner of Blossoms bookstore, Mayi Gowda said, “Yesterday (Monday) there were no sales of Kalam books, but today close to 60 copies of Kalam’s works were sold. Mostly, youngsters bought the books.” Gowda also predicts that the trend is likely to last for a week.