Tekkatte Narayan Shanbhag

Tekkatte Narayan Shanbhag (1925-2009) was an Indian scholar, bookseller and the founder of Strand Book Stores. He was credited with working to transform bookselling into a personal experience, prompting the writer Kushwant Singh, on a BBC show, to call Strand the only personal book shop in India. He was honoured by the Government of India in 2003 with Padma Shri, the fourth highest Indian civilian award.

Biography Thekkatte Narayan Shanbhag was born in 1925 in Thekkate, a hamlet near Mangalore, in the Indian state of Karnataka to a wealthy grocer. His father died when Shanbhag was aged just over two and he had a difficult childhood.