{"id":69685,"date":"2025-02-25T15:00:31","date_gmt":"2025-02-25T06:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/global-development\/2025\/feb\/25\/it-shatters-my-heart-the-slow-death-of-indias-once-famous-urdu-book-bazaar"},"modified":"2025-02-25T15:00:31","modified_gmt":"2025-02-25T06:00:31","slug":"it-shatters-my-heart-the-slow-death-of-indias-once-famous-urdu-book-bazaar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=69685","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It shatters my heart\u2019: the slow death of India\u2019s once-famous Urdu book bazaar"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For over a century, poets, publishers and printers filled this Delhi district\u2019s narrow lanes. But as profits plummet, bookshops are being replaced by kebab shops<\/p>\n<p>Inside one of the oldest bookshops in Delhi\u2019s Urdu Bazaar, Rafiq Ahmad, a film critic and writer, is scrutinising the bookshelves for material to help with his next project. Ahmad often travels from Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh to Delhi\u2019s famed Urdu Bazaar in search of the books he needs.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI know this is the place where I can find any Urdu book from any era. Whenever I have to write anything, I come here for material. Currently, I am looking for books about Dilip Kumar, the renowned Bollywood actor,\u201d Ahmad says.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/global-development\/2025\/feb\/25\/it-shatters-my-heart-the-slow-death-of-indias-once-famous-urdu-book-bazaar\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For over a century, poets, publishers and printers filled this Delhi district\u2019s narrow lanes. But as profits plummet, bookshops are being replaced by kebab shopsInside one of the oldest bookshops in Delhi\u2019s Urdu Bazaar, Rafiq Ahmad, a film critic and w&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4625,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3263,511,71,353,59,62,61,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-bookshops","category-books","category-culture","category-delhi","category-global-development","category-india","category-south-and-central-asia","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4625"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=69685"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69686,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69685\/revisions\/69686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=69685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=69685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=69685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}