Khel Sahitya Kendra

Working out of a basement on Ansari Road has its own set of challenges. Daryaganj is a crowded place, and being at No. 7/26 means we are right in the thick of things. The Times of India building is close by, so that is usually how people find us. Down here, it stays a bit cooler than the street level, which is nice during the Delhi summers. We have rows and rows of books, mostly focused on sports and physical education since that’s what we do. It’s not a very bright space, but we have enough lights to see the titles on the spines. The walls are lined with shelves that go all the way to the ceiling. Sometimes the delivery trucks have a hard time finding a place to park on Ansari Road, so we end up carrying stacks of books down the stairs ourselves. It keeps us moving. People come in looking for specific coaching manuals or history books about different games. We don't have a big reception area or anything like that. It is mostly just desks, packing tape, and piles of paper waiting to be sorted. You can hear the traffic muffled from above, which reminds us how busy the city is while we’re down here working. It’s a practical setup for us. We've been in this basement for a long time, and we’ve gotten used to the way the air smells of old paper and ink. It works for us.