They mean business: The new faces of India Inc

Enterprise in India has as many reasons as faces. Some take to it as an unquestioning continuance of the family business, others to strike out on their own; some explore new ideas, while others revive old ones; some preserve tradition in the face of odds, others take on the challenges of novelty. But what binds them all is the passion for ownership
Published: Aug 17, 2015
They mean business: The new faces of India Inc

Image by : Vikas Khot

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  • They mean business: The new faces of India Inc
  • They mean business: The new faces of India Inc
  • They mean business: The new faces of India Inc
  • They mean business: The new faces of India Inc
  • They mean business: The new faces of India Inc
  • They mean business: The new faces of India Inc
When Shirish Dattatray Ghatpande became familiar with the insides of this shop, he was a six-year-old in shorts; his father had started the shop in 1954 with 1,000 books. Today, 60 years later, he is still there, behind the counter, as absorbed as he was then. Ujjwal Granth Bhandar, at Pune’s Appa Balwant Chowk, is a quintessential second-hand bookstore, with 90,000 titles covering education, religion, and fiction. Although the business boasts of a Rs 1.5 crore turnover, it is never quite about the money. It is a matter of joy and pride for Ghatpande that whoever comes to his shop never leaves without a book. But reading books, he says, is something that most people don’t get much time for any longer; other mediums too are taking readers away from books. Will his son continue with the business? Ghatpande is not so sure. There may not be many book readers left by then