Ganesha bookstore still a beloved Ubud institution

Ganesha bookstore still a beloved Ubud institution

Dewi Anggraeni, Contributor, Melbourne, Australia

In a place of rapid, sometimes frantic change, it is always
reassuring to come across some constants. While we often concede
to the need, and even enjoy the fruit of development, deep down
we still hanker for the familiarity of what we know.

One of the constants of Ubud in Bali is Ganesha bookshop,
which is now situated along the main street of the town, opposite
the Ubud Post Office.

While it has relocated twice, from its original position along
the road leading to the famous monkey forest, then across the
road from its current location, the bookshop has retained its
quaint, charming yet understated appearance.

Even the board bearing a golden picture of Ganesha, the Hindu
God of knowledge and the arts, is not placed at the main
entrance, but on a window facing the smaller side street.

The moment you step in, you will feel a subtle influence
encouraging you to stay and browse, or even daydream. It is one
of the charmed things visitors experience in Bali, especially in
parts of the island a fair way from the beaten path.

On the other hand, what you are experiencing may just be the
excitement of being surrounded by symbols of knowledge packaged
in various attractive and presentable forms, made to last and
linger by the gamelan music playing in the background.

The shop sells new, secondhand and antiquarian books, as well
as CDs, musical instruments, magazines, cards and other gifts or
souvenir items. It is frequented by tourists, expatriates and
locals, who come to check out its wide variety of quality books,
including its stock of rare and out of print volumes.

Ganesha was the first bookshop in Ubud, a labor of love of
Australian Anita Scheeres and her husband, Balinese writer Ketut
Yuliarsa Sastrawan.

Newly married in the 1980s, Anita and Ketut, residents of
Sydney, found themselves returning to Ubud for holidays.
Originally from Denpasar, Ketut found in Ubud what he was seeking
as a writer: peace and solitude, and at the same time a feeling
of being completely at home.

They decided to buy land near the monkey forest, still
dominated by rice fields at the time. Feeling the need for a
place where people would be able to trade reading materials, the
couple started a book exchange business, managed by Ketut's
father, who had then retired from his position as head of the
office of Bali's culture and education ministry. In the meantime,
Anita And Ketut would bring bags full of books each time they
came for their holidays.

"We then placed the books in the store for exchange or sale.
This way we were assured of obtaining more books for us to read
while in Ubud," Anita recalled.

The shop quickly filled up as they had to keep adding more
shelves to accommodate the books. So when they made a move to
live more permanently in Ubud with their then two-year-old son in
1992, they also moved the shop to a larger location on the main
street.

They soon tripled their secondhand book selection, then added
a new books section, followed by musical instruments and other
knick-knacks.

"Ketut and I have a deep love of books and have always been
very aware of the joy that reading can offer," Anita replied when
asked why they did not start a restaurant or boutique instead.

"It gave us so many opportunities to meet people from all over
the world who shared our love of books. It also gave us a simple
yet comfortable lifestyle in Ubud -- just enough to keep the
store going and to pay for the necessities of life and a little
extra for yearly trips to Sydney, to stock up on yet more books
to sell in the store."

Ketut and Anita have never relied on shipping books into Bali.
Apart from enjoying doing the selection themselves, they like to
know where their books are at any given time.

"Shipping books is always haphazard, whether the books will
indeed arrive, whether there will be 'import taxes' charged --
and we have never really found out what the official rate of duty
is," explained Anita.

Anita believes that the secret of Ganesha's success as a
bookstore has been the fact that they are always actively
involved in choosing their books.

"We are very discerning about the books we purchase for the
store. We don't just stock a mass of books, but rather select
books that are topical, current, classic or just fine pieces of
work," she said.

"We have found over the years that it is really pointless to
have shelves and shelves of paperbacks because most of them just
stay on the shelves."

The family has now moved back to Sydney where Jarrah, their
son, goes to high school. To keep the store operating, Ketut and
Anita have reliable staff who handle the day-to-day business, and
in the meantime they travel frequently between Sydney and Ubud,
with today's technology allowing them to stay in touch each day
with what is going on in the store.

They have also moved into the Internet era, with a very active
website.

"We also now sell Indonesian books that we purchase directly
from the publishers. I purchase our Indonesian studies books
around the world via the Internet and then bring them to Ubud
each time I come. It is now a very solid part of our business,"
Anita recounted.

They have orders from many universities around the world for
their Indonesian studies books. "But most of our business is
still conducted face to face in the bookstore," she said.

They have no plans to build a modern, air-conditioned,
multistory shop. They derive satisfaction from people who return
year after year, and are pleased to find the shop still the same.

"And from still being able to provide them with 'a great
find', or 'a book I've been looking everywhere for' and so on.
This is our joy, our passion and why we still continue with
Ganesha bookshop," Anita said.