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Rather like the protagonist in James Hilton’s Goodbye Mr. Chips, the legendary owner of Premier Book Shop was just Mr. Shanbhag. I didn’t know his first name for long. Then the Internet supplied the information: Sarvotham. It means ‘the finest’. Few names are so appropriate. And now he’s gone, taking with him a chunk of my growing years. I was in school in the 1970s when I first walked into Premier. I had a gift coupon. Other bookstores in the area looked on schoolboys not as customers then or for the future, but pesky juveniles who needed to be followed around suspiciously and asked questions till they left the store in sheer annoyance. ....
He was hospitalised for a few days and passed away on Tuesday night Tributes started pouring in from entire generations of book lovers as news of the passing away of T.S. Shanbhag, the owner of erstwhile legendary Premier Book Shop, came out on Wednesday. Balakrishna V., his financial advisor,told The Hindu that he turned 84 on May 2. “He was suffering from an infection and then got COVID-19. He was hospitalised for a few days and passed away on Tuesday night,” he said. He is survived by his wife and daughter s family. Started in 1971, the bookshop eventually closed down in 2009, the reason being an exponential increase in the rent on Church Street. ....