Riya Siddhacharjee
At 53 years of age, Tarun Kumar Shaw is a familiar face among Kolkata’s bibliophiles. He is known as the ‘Personal Home delivery’ person for books. Long before Jeff Bezos thought about it, Tarun Shaw came up with the idea to deliver books long before Amazon/Flipkart or any book delivering site offered.
Kolkata’s entrepreneur and bibliophile Tarun babu understood that delivering books would be a great business. No doubt it was a brave move. Whenever any bibliophile in Kolkata couldn’t find any particular book at a library or any store, just pick up the cell phone and dial a number.
It is true that if a book has been published in the past 100 years, high chances are Tarun da will get it for you! Shaw got his love for books from his father and continues to do so.
Even if it is an overseas newspaper or journal or any rare magazine, Tarun Da will get it to you within a given date. The question remains, how does he get those books which are unpublished in India? He has a strong connection with publishers in Europe and the USA; anything unique, rare, and old can be found. He would generally change a nominal for Journals- 200 to 500. Even Tarun da and his elder brother Utsav Kumar Shaw run a business. They both run a shop ‘Dey & Brothers’ in New Market.
The book delivery business may go down by they have a loyal client of about 800 peoples. He operates from his house, along with his elder brother, and has few people to assist him in the operations. He sells only English and Bengali books because, in his words, “no one reads books in any other language here”.
So the next time, if you can’t find any journal or any typical book then you know whom to call.
Contact: 9831201402
Timings: Preferably 11 am to 8 pm
