Lockdown realities hit home as Iconic Delhi bookstore-cafe closes

New Delhi, June 10

Long hours browsing through books and tranquil afternoons of catching up with friends, and sometimes me-time, over hot coffee or cold gazpacho at the Full Circle and Café Turtle in Delhi’s Khan Market are over – perhaps forever.

The shutters on the bookshop and café, high above the hubbub of the Central Delhi market, came down with the lockdown beginning March 25 and will not go up as the city begins to relax restrictions, the owner of the 20-year-old store announced this week.

Priyanka Malhotra, director of the store, said the nationwide lockdown hit the business hard.

“The flagship store of Full Circle and Café Turtle in Delhi’s famous Khan Market has finally decided to pull down its shutters, after having made a loving home there for over 20 years. It was a particularly difficult decision for us to make, since running the bookshop was not mere business for my family, but a way of living,” Malhotra said in an online article on Scroll.in.

Khan Market, a hub of eateries, bars and shops, is listed as one of the most expensive retail locations in the world. And failed negotiations with their landlord to waive or reduce rents led to closing down of the business.

The Full Circle and Café Turtle will be coming up again soon in Mehar Chand Market and two other branches in Greater Kailash and Nizamuddin will continue to operate.

 But it will not be the same. The Khan Market branch, the first, was a special place, many Delhi residents said. The well-designed bookshop and the narrow wooden staircase that led to the Cafe Turtle painted in forest green and bright yellow offered visitors an old-world charm all its own.

For many Delhiites, the news of a very personal piece of life in Delhi receding into a pre-corona past came as something of a shock. There was also the realisation that this might be just the beginning of more profound changes.

It is the end of an era, said Nikita Awasthi, an accountant by profession.

She remembers leisurely afternoons spent sitting quietly in a corner on the wooden floor, reading one of the thousands of books in the store.

“No trip to Khan Market was complete without at least one visit there. It was always lovely to visit Full Circle and Cafe Turtle and this is almost like the end of an era. I remember this one time my dad was stuck in a meeting so I sat reading there for six hours. There was an aura of tranquillity about that space,” the 26-year-old told PTI.

Tanyaa Raturi, another frequent visitor, said it was one of the few places where you could sit and read, reminiscent of her visits to a store in Dehradun.

“I haven’t found many bookstores in Delhi that have that… As a child I used to visit Barista in Dehradun which had a bookstore as well and that concept was fascinating.

“Also, it felt like a place where you could sit for hours talking or just reading, with no one to disturb. There wasn’t loud noisy music playing as well,” Raturi, a 29-year-old kindergarten teacher, said. PTI