Want a Chetan Bhagat? Stay away from Rachna Books, the independent bookstore in Gangtok.

Raman Shresta, the idealistic 40-year-old bookseller, still has to borrow money from his parents “well, almost every year” but refuses to stock some of the bestselling authors because of their “dubious literary merit”. In fact, he waits in ambush for unsuspecting youngsters to walk in asking for a Chetan Bhagat, or Durjoy Datta, or Ravinder Singh. And then? “I tell them about good, serious writers. I guide them towards classics, you never go wrong with them.” Some of them go back, some with a book or two; a few come back for more.

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