8 - LeftWord: A Heterotopic Space in Post-democratic India

Summary

And when the enthusiastic

story of our time

is told,

who are yet to be born

but announce themselves

with more generous face,

we will come out ahead

– those who have suffered most from it.

And that

being ahead of your time

means much suffering from it.

But it's beautiful to love the world

with eyes

that have not yet

been born.

And splendid

to know yourself victorious

when all around you

it's all still so cold,

so dark.

—‘Before the Scales, Tomorrow’ by Otto Rene Castillo

You can disembark at the Shadipur Metro station in West Delhi and walk down or take a rickshaw through the bustling Shadi Khampur bazaar. At the end of the main bazaar road, you will find a cycle rickshaw stand. In this nook of a predominantly working-class neighbourhood is the building housing the May Day Bookstore-cum-LeftWord Office. Walk in through the bookstore's bright yellow painted doors stencilled with ‘8 hours of work, 8 hours of sleep, and 8 hours for books and coffee’ (see Image 8.1) to lose yourselves in rows of bookshelves. As the name suggests, LeftWord publishes and distributes books on a range of subjects broadly aligned with the left ideology, issues concerning working lives, and Marxist writings. You will also find books from other independent publishing houses such as Tulika, Zubaan, Kali, and Navayana. It is a space that hopes to impel people to act against tyranny, imagine another future. A space that chronicles another time, as Castillo inscribes – Before the scales, tomorrow.

If you run into Sudhanva Deshpande, managing editor of LeftWord, he will generously offer you a cup of coffee at the bookstore's coffee corner – a brief encounter with him and you sense his deep commitment to left politics. If you are lucky, you might be able to time your visit with a play staged next door at Studio Safdar, an independent art space established by the legendary political street theatre group Jana Natya Manch (Janam). If you head to the May Day Bookstore on 1 May, you will find a room full of artists, academics, students, a lot of music, and poetry.