Ashwin Wahane owner of Wahane Book Shop, a second-hand book store in the city said, “the pandemic has done nothing but added to their misery”. He said, “from the beginning, only our business has suffered a lot, we had to bear a huge amount of losses and were literally were living at the mercy of some college and school students and now with the schools and colleges being shut due to the COVID pandemic it has done nothing but added to our misery”.
The business of second-hand book stores of the city has been reduced by over 50 percent. With the schools and colleges of the city been closed due to the pandemic and many books and reading platforms available online, we were suffering from the very beginning and now, the pandemic has done nothing but has added to their misery, it feels like someone is rubbing salt on their wounds.
Manish Wahane owner of Akshay Book Depo and many other second-hand book store owners have pretty much the same story to tell. The owner of these book stores have been suffering for quite some time, with they been relocated due to the metro construction, space is an issue the availability of the books on an online platform, then the pandemic, the list of their problems and issues is endless. Many of them said that we just have to be optimistic and wait for the pandemic to end, the vaccine to come out, the schools and colleges to reopen, and hopefully after that our business will be back on track and normalcy will return to our lives.
