On Sunday morning, my wife and I went to Colaba in South Mumbai, as we have been doing for many years. It was a lovely day. The rains were finally here, and the weather was pleasant after two months of scorching summer. We didn’t have an agenda. We simply wanted to spend a few unhurried hours there, and spend them together. It rained on and off as we walked the length of Colaba Causeway, a bustling shopping street where shops and roadside vendors sold everything from cosmetic

Whenever I’m out and about in Mumbai, or travelling to another city, I instinctively look for a bookstore first. It doesn’t matter whether it’s new, secondhand or a thrift store as long as it’s a place that sells books, where I can spend a couple of hours browsing and buying. Books, and especially comic-books, bring me joy. Sometimes, these literary literary excursions make me want to open a bookstore. It has been my dream since my twenties, when I became a serious reader.