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(India Journal August 10, 2001) CERRITOS, CA - With bubble having burst and many online businesses wrapping up, Balkatha.com has survived and is moving on. Bhavin and Dipa Gandhi, who launched the site in late 1999 have seen a steady growth. Despite the dotcom bust and the current slowdown sales of books have not slowed. As the name of the site suggests, it concentrates on the sale and distribution of children's books. The books are from India and are available in eight Indian languages including Gujarati, Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, Malayalam, Bengali, Kannada and Telugu. Says Dipa Gandhi, "At present we have 150 titles which can be ordered online. I try to review all the books before putting them up on the site and even read them to my sons Manas and Rushik to get their reactions. I have rejected a number of books on the basis of poor quality, language, violent content etc." The couple struck on the idea of launching Balkatha.com as they were faced with a dearth of good quality books to read to their two young sons. Says Dipa, " we visited many of the local libraries hoping to find children's books in Indian languages, and bilingual books." Though children books are their main interest, recently they have started supplying adult fiction novels in Hindi and Gujarati to the Buena Park library. "Non-fiction books in Indian languages are not in demand as library rules require very high quality books which contain authenticated facts," she says. As to future plans, Dipa says, "the most immediate one is to open our own publishing house in India. We will start with Indian language and bilingual books by Indian authors starting with stories written by my mother-in-law, Sumati Gandhi." From merely being a dotcom they want to start a brick-and-mortar retail store for children's books. To promote Indian literature they take part in read aloud sessions in various local elementary schools like Gonsalves and Kennedy Elementary in Cerritos. In the Buena Park and Cerritos Libraries they conduct read alouds in Hindi and Gujarati. Balkatha also offers gift packages for all occasions, which can be ordered online. They are wrapped , personalized and delivered. Dipa is looking forward to taking part in the California Library Association Conference in November where a large number of book vendors will gather and Balkatha will be the only vendor for Indian books. Indian language books also got good exposure through Balkatha at the Foreign Language Book Fair at San Diego in March. |
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