Jayant Meghani (1938-2020): Remembering the meticulous bookseller of Bhavnagar
How a Gujarati bookstore in Bhavnagar achieved cult status thanks to its founder, who died on December 4, at the age of 82. Jayant Meghani. | Surendrasinh Gohil
In 1972, a young librarian named Jayant Meghani started a bookshop named Prasar in the city of Bhavnagar. Located on western coastline of the Gulf of Cambay near the historic port of Ghogha, it was once the capital of a large princely state with its own publishing tradition and printing infrastructure.
By the 1970s, Bhavnagar had been relegated to the sidelines of the Gujarati publishing world, which was centred around the north-south axis between Ahemdabad and Mumbai. As the very name – Prasar – suggested, Meghani was a man on a mission: a mission to spread and broaden a culture of reading in the Gujarati world.