Be it the Hungry Tide or his latest three-part report on the tsunami-hit Andaman Nicobar Islands. Given the mastery with which Amitav Ghosh describes geographical details in his fictional or non-fictional works, it is foolhardy to think that he has no knowledge about Ranchi or Jharkhand. It is, however, I believe a tad too much to expect Ranchi to know him. Especially the Ranchi booksellers, who prefer not to have any book written by him.

The Book Zone in Hari Om Tower in Ranchi, boasts to bethe storehouse of literary books. Believe it or not, the salespeople expressed utter ignorance about Ghosh and his books, when I had the fortune to visit the shop, one Saturday evening. In fact, the Book Zone is no exception. Famous Indian authors, who write in English — Amitav Ghosh, Vikram Seth, Suketu Mehta, Anurag Mathur and Ashok Banker are also prominently missing.

There are two other book shops of “repute” in Ranchi-Book World and Good Books. Let us delve deeper into their secret chambers. Good Books contains mostly biblical stuff. If at all it has some abridged versions of famous classics by Emily Bronte, Shakespeare and Charles Dickens, published by Madhuban Publication, with grammatical and spelling errors. A literature lover will find the famed classics abridged by Madhuban Publications, simply revolting. The Book World, too, is bereft of books by Ruskin Bond, Amit Choudhary, Salman Rushdie and Jhumpa Lahiri. Wonder how does one qualify for Ranchi shelves?

Vikram Seth who has got a record advance of £1.4 million for his still unpublished, Two Lives, which on its completion might be sold well all over the world. But the Noida-based author cannot possibly expect his Two Lives to hit Ranchi stores any time soon, given the state of affairs and attitude of Jharkhand booksellers.

Of course, the motivational books authored by our scientist President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and Shiv Khera adorn the racks of the Ranchi bookshops. “The books you are mentioning have no market in Ranchi” is the oft repeated refrain that one gets to hear if one dares to enquire into the near drought of books. But have they ever tried to keep and sell the latest literary blockbusters? I really believe not.

It is not that Ranchi does not have bookshops. Its streets are dotted with a plethora of bookshops. But these shops cater only to the students of various vocational studies besides colleges and schools. There is a bookshop in every cluster with three to four ration and garment shops, in the busy upper bazaar. The Shri Gopal Complex, which houses our newspaper’s office besides other corporate offices, too has a bookshop. But in these shops you can find notes on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and Milton’s Paradise Lost which the students of English literature buy and use as guides. But the originals of Shakespeare and Milton which I suspect the students are quite wary of are missing in these shops.

A well-known author and critic of Hindi literature Khagendra Thakur describes the “absence of literary tradition” in the city as the main reason behind the shortage of the current literary writings.

“The absence of literary tradition is also evident from the fact that Ranchi does not hold book fairs on the scale on which Patna and Calcutta organise every year,” he rues. Thakur says that Ranchi has many writers too who write prolifically. “But their books are driven more by incidents and mishaps, NGOs carrying out movement against displacement and exploitation of tribals rather than genuine literary pursuit,” he says. I find it hard to agree with Thakur in the context of Jharkhand so full of mountains, falls and forests which provide the perfect ambience for the creation of literature and literary activities.

Nalin Verma The Author is the Ranchi based special correspondent of the Telegraph