ABSTRACT
In the early 1950s, Khan Market in New Delhi was starting to establish itself and shop spaces were being allocated to refugees from the North West Frontier Province. One refugee took up a shop at great expense in order to set up a bookstore which has come to be known as ‘Bahrisons’. Khan Market these days is an upmarket district of New Delhi where the well-to-do sip tea, shop and browse the latest books. Khan Market from its inception always had an up-market customer base. In the earlier days of the market from the 1950s till the later part of the 1970s, Khan Market was a lazy ‘mom n pop stores’ sort of a market. The main trade of the market was daily groceries, fruit and vegetables, chemists, cloth material stores and tailors – with the exception of bookstores. Somehow the market was always visited by the upper crust alongside a very international mix of customers.
