Remembering the perfect kitabwala

Founder of Manohar Publishers and Distributors, my father, Ramesh Chandra Jain, prioritised relationships over commerce. He had a knack of picking young academics to publish. Many would go on to be published by globally reputed academic publishers like Cambridge and Oxford.

Born in Gurgaon, he graduated in Economic (Honours) from Kirori Mal College, Delhi, and joined his elder brother in the business of selling rare books. In 1969, at the age of 26, he started his own publishing house and bookstore in Daryaganj, Delhi. For him, it was a labour of love.

Since this was the era of growing interest in South Asian studies, especially among the Americans, the bookstore was the first stop for many doctoral students and visiting academics. My father in his lifetime published more than 1,800 titles.

Humble and hardworking, after building the business from scratch, he made sure that I learnt all aspects of the business. My first job was in the packing section. He ensured that I rose through the ranks, and imbibed the values he cherished.

Such was his commitment to publishing that he would personally go through most of the manuscripts and would take great care in selecting a referee and then editors. Even after he started ageing, he would personally answer all emails till late at night and then start again early in the morning.

He had a photogenic memory. He would remember titles and book jackets like the back of his hand. He would read the books and remember the content, so when we had customers in office looking for books on a certain subject, my father would rattle off a list of all the relevant titles within seconds. Our bookshop is visited by scholars from all over the world, many of whom recall such anecdotes with fondness.

Naturally, he earned a lot of respect among scholars for the quality of publishing, ethics and humility. He was very proud of Manohar being a homegrown publishing house, which he started from scratch and grew in competition with multinational publishing houses.

He also developed a fascination for collecting rare coins of the sultanate and medieval periods. As was his nature to go deep into the subject and not just skim the surface, we laboured to figure out what was inscribed on the coins and learnt about the concepts of coin collection. That was also the time he published several books on the history of coins.

Manohar was synonymous with Ramesh Chandra Jain and vice versa, but he struck a fine balance between work and devoting time to his family. After his illness, he would insist on getting back to work and even when his health did not allow him to work at the pace that he had set for himself, he would always wait for the new Manohar titles from the press. The happiness on his face and the spark in his eyes said it all.

With his passing away, the publishing world has lost a person who had great passion for publishing quality academic books and someone who always wanted to promote young scholars.

He gave 54 years of his life to the Indian academic world and he was the happiest in the world of books. Books were like his children which needed to be nurtured. He was the perfect kitabwala. He will be in our hearts forever.

The writer is the owner of Manohar Publishers