A Chennai bookshop pushes for an alternative reading culture

The bookshop is also a product of such activism. Activists involved with issues like environment, human rights, secularism and those in search of alternative politics found there was no place stocking books of their interest. And Oasis was born. Over the years, it has evolved as the only bookshop in Chennai that stocks publishers as varied as Madhyam, Other India, Centre for Science and Environment, Vikas Adhyayan Kendra, and a host of other little publishers. Says Nathaniel Roberts, a research scholar in the anthropology department, Columbia University, New York, "Oasis is the first place I go to when looking for a specific book, or just when I’m browsing...." A bestseller list at Oasis is illustrative of this alternative reading culture that the bookshop seeks to promote: Masanobu Fukuoka’s One-Straw Revolution, S.V. Rajadurai-V.Geetha’s Towards a Non-Brahmin Millennium, Life in Plastic by Robert Edwards & Rachel Kellet, and Noam Chomsky’s Powers and Prospects.

The people who patronise Oasis too come from various backgrounds. Says Rathin Roy, a development consultant for the UN, "Prabalan caters to a specialised audience. Also, his first-hand knowledge of books on marginalised issues is of great help." Oasis is also a hub for field-level activists like Sister Vaidehi. "This is one place which offers anti-communalism pamphlets, booklets on issues like globalisation, intellectual property rights, Dalit issues, feminism etc," she says. The bookshop is also regular suppliers to institutions like the National Folklore Support Centre (NFSC). Says M.D. Muthukumaraswamy, NFSC director, "We have multi-disciplinary requirements, from ethnography, anthropology, Indology to linguistics. Oasis is a good source."

Prabalan himself is not a man founded on degrees and scholastics. His vast knowledge owes more to an activist zeal rooted in his working class origins. Born to a labourer father and a home-maker mother in a family with 10 children, Prabalan, 54 and still single, had the rare privilege then of studying up to Class X and getting an ITI diploma. "I worked as a toolmaker in a private company," he says. Prabalan’s passion found expression even in the ’70s when he coordinated a circulation library for company workers. "We used to read Life magazine and Marx’s Gundrisse." In 1975, he was dismissed for trade union activities. A 15-year court case gave Prabalan his job again, but by then he was more an activist, content to just collect his back-wages and provident fund. "Using some of this money, and along with friends, we started Earthworm in ’93. Some partners split in ’96, and Oasis took shape," he says.

Oasis continued to be a meeting point for activists involved in various struggles like the anti-Dupont struggle and the movement against the Sterlite Copper Smelting Plant in Tuticorin. Prabalan’s also a short-film maker and, of course, the themes are green—a documentary on tannery effluents and water pollution, a film on shrimp farms on the TN coast, and another against the construction of a highway on the East Coast. Not surprisingly, it’s the first bookshop in Chennai to use paper bags that Prabalan designed and manufactured.

But the informal, activist mode of operations has had its pitfalls. To promote the distribution of books, Oasis supplied books to small booksellers at minimum margins. Many are yet to pay up. "The loss accumulated over the years will come to Rs 2 lakh," notes Prabalan as the smile disappears from his face. So what can salvage the situation? "A long-term interest-free loan for working capital and infrastructure development." Alternatively, if you are a book-lover who wants to put the smile back on Prabalan’s face, just drop in at 17, Kutchery Road, Mylapore, Chennai 600004.Ph: 4613445/4939276. Email: oasisbooks@yahoo.com