Place: Oxford Bookstore – Cha Bar, Coimbatore
Date: 8.7.2009
Time: 11 A.M
Ambience :
It was a bright sunny day, calm ambience and with lot of questions, Ramesh and I entered the Oxford bookstore in Trichy Road, Coimbatore to have a short chat session with Rajeev Kamineni – Director at the Oxford Bookstore. We had already obtained an appointment and as promised he was waiting to greet us and took us to the Cha Bar – 10 feet walk inside the Book store. We fired many questions and Rajeev fired back…and the fire glittered with many interesting insights of our discussion. Listed here are the top 10 insights.

1. It was very clear from Rajeev’s body language that he is a character more than a business man. The message he was conveying was clear – “Revolution through books”.

2. Compared to Chennai and other leading cities, Rajeev says that the percentage of voracious readers are very less in Coimbatore and on the other hand evolution of new book stores are causing concerns

3. After leaving the tenure (PR) in Australia, Rajeev has kick started this “Oxford dream” in Coimbatore inspite of several initial bottle necks and critics but he backtracks that it was his 25 years dream and still miles to go.

4. “What sells in other cities doesn’t sell in Coimbatore” was Rajeev’s biggest comment and he says that it was a tough challenge to maintain the tempo between his business and passion .He was brave enough to accept that his business was nil 18 months ago after which he brainstormed some innovative culture to keep the show live.

5. Rajeev relies on his previous experience as a teacher and reader and this is the 9th city of his living and he says that he relies on his past experience to handle the tough times in business.

6. When asked about the Oxford Bookstore story, he was quick in answering that his venture wasn’t accepted well when he launched Oxford bookstore in 2006. In 2007, he decided to bring in people with trust by launching variety of events, lectures of famous authors,cookery, game shows etc and so far Oxford has been continuously conducting a mixture of events for the past 75 weeks.

7. When asked “Native language collections are minimal in Oxford? “, Rajeev says that he has tried many native language collections, tie-up events with few tamil magazines, but the response was not very much encouraging. He also assures to concentrate more on the native language.

8. When asked about the Cha Bar, Rajeev says that Cha bar consist of over 70 Kinds of Tea varities and book lovers at Oxford find it easy when they have a tea-shop to munch ideas, discuss on authors and spend their evening with friends and families. Cha Bar is also the utilized by many other corporate and event management companies to conduct their shows and functions

9. What is the future and ambitions of Rajeev?

“A World Class Library in Coimbatore”

Wow, what a dream. Good luck Rajeev.

10. How does Oxford support writers? Will it help for publications?

Yes, If you are a writer and have stuffs, Oxford will definetly show you the way on how to take it forward and what can be done. Oxford is open to any innovative ideas

And that’s it… a book lover, his dreams in Coimbatore. Let his dreams continue to nourish into reality and serve the book lovers in the Cotton city.

A2Z Recommendation to Public

A2z definetly recommends Oxford book store for a variety of reasons like collection of books, corporate approach, and lovely ambience. Spicy tea varities, brilliant offers etc. If you ever think of books, you should drop in atleast once to Oxford, Trichy road Coimbatore.

A2z Idea to Oxford Bookstore Coimbatore

We kindly request Oxford book store’s team to start an online shop very soon so that people might get a chance order books from home , keep them updated on the latest collections etc.

Ask a question to Rajeev

Have a question to Rajeev? Use the form below to shoot your questions and check later in this very same post. Your questions will be answered directly from Rajeev.

Interviewed By T.R.Vijay Anand
http://www.vijayanand.info