A huge chunk of the ‘joy’ in City of Joy comes from books. Since 1999, Starmark has been an indelible part of Kolkata’s reading community. Ask a bookworm about their favourite place to find classics and peruse through new arrivals, and chances are that they will take you to the sprawling store in South City Mall. As Starmark completed 25 years, My Kolkata caught up with the CEO of this iconic brand, Gautam Jatia, to talk about the journey till now and the path ahead.
Edited excerpts follow…
My Kolkata: Congratulations on completing a glorious silver jubilee! How did the journey start?
Gautam Jatia: Only yesterday, I read this very interesting quote from Neil Gaiman — ‘A town isn’t a town, without a bookstore’. It touched a nerve, because books are the soul of any culture, and you can test any place’s development by the quality of its bookshops.
Our journey started when Emami Group constructed a mall on Lord Sinha Road. We needed a tenant for a large space on the 3rd floor. We travelled around India and visited a lot of shops from which we particularly loved Chennai-based Landmark, which had pioneered the bookstore revolution in India along with Oxford. As a child, I took regular trips to Chennai and I loved Landmark. My boss met the owners and asked them to come to Kolkata. They liked our space, but didn’t want to come in as tenants. They proposed a joint venture, where Landmark would provide the technology, stock and logistics, while Emami invested in the space, and asked me to manage the store. Prior to this, I had been working with Emami Group’s real estate division, but in October 1999, I headed the first Landmark store in Kolkata.
Landmark was sold to the Tata Group in 2006, but Emami Group retained the Landmark store (in picture) in Kolkata and rebranded to Starmark Courtesy Gautam Jatia
In 2006, Landmark was sold to the Tatas, but Emami Group retained the Kolkata store and rebranded it as Starmark. A year later, we opened a store in City Centre Salt Lake. Finally, in 2008, we set up this space in South City Mall, which became a turning point.
The interiors were modelled around Books Kinokuniya’s (a Japanese bookstore chain) alcove concept. Not only is it efficient, but also gives you cosy corners to sit, while insulating you from the rest of the world. From the start, we knew that we wanted to encourage browsing and be customer friendly. Sometimes, our staff is convinced that people have returned books only after reading them, but we allowed it only because we want to promote a culture of reading.
We pride ourselves on our reading nooks. People don’t just come to bookstores to shop, it’s also a form of therapy. Whenever I’m feeling sad or low, coming to Starmark always picks me up. Spots to read within the store help our customers be absorbed in this atmosphere.
We also kept complimentary sections to books, like stationary, toys and arts and craft material. Over the past 16 years, we have become the favourite shop for many people, especially young children.
A hallmark of Starmark is the cosy reading corners throughout the store
Consistently attracting readers must require a compelling catalogue. How do you curate yours?
We curate our collection with a lot of attention. Our software constantly tells us what works and what doesn’t. We also stay updated with Amazon reviews and what people are talking about on social media. Apart from this, many readers keep giving us feedback.
There is a huge loyalty for our fantasy, science fiction, crime, self-help, children’s books, philosophy, religion, and now, graphic novels. We keep stocking up on the latest DC comics and Manga series, apart from classics like The Sandman. We have even kept some merchandise, like the mask from V for Vendetta. When the Harry Potter books were released, people would queue up from 6am to receive their copy. We had once kept the store open at midnight for a Harry Potter party.
The graphic novel genre has gained immense loyalty in the past few years
Going by these strengths, we also consciously don’t keep textbooks or management. We have restricted our titles to English and Bengali, simply because Hindi literature is so rich and we would need much more space to accommodate it.
How has Starmark reinvented itself over the years?
It’s not been reinvention as much as evolution.
When we started, visual media was a huge category, and we kept DVDs and CDs of movies, music and computer games. But technological advancements led to their extinction. Instead, we expanded our stationary, arts and craft section, and diversified into a lot of gifting. In order to improve our assortment, we started importing products. We also visited exhibitions in Mumbai, Delhi and Hong Kong to add new vendors and improve our supply chain. There was also an emphasis on cracking licensing deals with franchises like Disney and Warner Bros.
The South City Mall store has vastly expanded its arts, crafts and stationery sections over the year
Apart from this, we’ve always focussed on engagement through events. When graphic novels gained popularity, we organised a panel discussion with the British Council, where an author and graphic novelist spoke on the differences between a book and a graphic novel. To encourage children to write, we got in touch with the GPO and installed a post box at Starmark, where kids could drop their letters, and the post office would collect it every week. We did a LEGO castle-building activity, where an architect from LEGO Mumbai helped school children build a castle. When Pokemon was a craze, we had a contest with participation from over 100 kids.
Over the past 25 years, how have your readers evolved?
I believe that people are reading a lot more. They also have many more avenues of reading. Education levels and purchasing power are also rising, so buying a book for Rs 200 isn’t as challenging when one spends Rs 2,000 in a multiplex or Rs 6,000 on shoes. Earlier, people only bought the classics, but now, they are more aware of international trends. There is an interest in reading new authors and translations. I recently went to Australia on holiday, and visited two bookshops. Both of them had Butter by Asako Yuzuki on their bestsellers list, as did we at Starmark! Recently, I watched Slow Horses, an Apple TV show, adapted from a series of novels by Mick Herron. The very next day, I found the author’s books in our new arrivals section!
Starmark has a sizeable Bengali section, and has done several events with Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay over the years
How do you compete with online portals like Amazon?
Books are sold in three forms today — physical, digital and audio. However, 85 per cent of the sales continue to come from physical books. With Amazon, we simply can’t beat their range. Even I think of Amazon when I can’t find a book at Starmark. But Amazon can’t give me the experience of a bookstore. The happiness I feel, by just sitting here isn’t what I feel while browsing through Amazon. I won’t get to meet fellow readers and ask them why they chose a particular book, and find myself picking it up too. The Pen Fest we did was such an eye opener, because I met someone who took out a loan to buy a pen worth two lakhs, simply because he loves pens so much. We struck up a conversation when I showed him my ‘Glow in the dark’ pen, along with a vintage Parker pen that my father had gifted me. This friendship, connection and learning can’t be found online.
To celebrate 25 years, Starmark at South City Mall has a new ‘Ink Station’, which stocks high-end writing apparatus and fountain pens
Besides this, nothing stimulates a young mind like interacting with an author. We’ve had people like Jeffrey Archer, Salman Rushdie and Alexander McCall Smith at Starmark, besides most Indian authors.
Could you share something about these connections that you have forged at Starmark?
Our customers add so much value to my life and the young readers make me especially happy. I meet many people who are now studying or working abroad, and they thank me for helping them with the right GMAT book.
I also fondly remember an encounter with Amitav Ghosh, who has a home in Jodhpur Park. Whenever he visits Kolkata, he comes over to the bookstore and we organise an event for him. On one such visit, he told me about this specific variant of Montblanc ink that he writes with. He would usually buy them back in London, and his supplies were almost depleted, so he requested me to arrange for it. We got in touch with the Montblanc distributor in Mumbai, and were able to secure a bottle of ink for him. Upon returning to London, he sent me a beautiful Sea of Poppies card, thanking me for helping him write and making his stay in Kolkata productive. I still cherish that card and keep it in my personal collection!
Jatia swears by the Bestsellers section, which is regularly updated in keeping with consumer trends
Starmark has also forayed into publishing…
We have a special passion for Kolkata-centric books and stationery, because we connect to this city and its soul. Currently, there are two books under production; 10 walks in Calcutta by Prosenjit Das Gupta, and Eating Calcutta by late Rakhi Purnima Dasgupta. We’ve also done a lot of graphic novels for Shirshendu Babu (Mukhopadhyay), with the idea of introducing non-Bengali readers to Bangla literature. We also bring out a Starmark Calendar every year, in collaboration with the Satyajit Ray archive, where we share factoids about the legendary director that aren’t commonly known. They’ve become collector’s items over the years, and are even selling in June.
Today, Starmark has stores in South City Mall, Quest Mall, City Centre 1 (in picture) and 2, and Mani Square
What’s the way forward?
We want to make Starmark South City one of the best bookstores in the country. We are constantly working to improve the curation, display, stationery and arts sections. Our vision is to have a large 15,000 to 20,000 sq ft flagship store at a High Street location, much like the international bookstores that are housed in iconic heritage buildings, like Strand Book Store in New York City. Whenever people visit Kolkata, visiting Starmark should be a bucket list item.
