"Bayaasi number jaana hai.” The rickshaw-puller nods in recognition and swiftly makes his way through a road teeming with buses, cars and auto-rickshaws. Soon the rickshaw enters a residential colony in Shadi Khampur in west Delhi and draws up in front of a pink neon sign which beckons from a distance. It reads “May Day Bookstore” in Hindi and English.

Entering the store owned by LeftWord Books, a left-wing publishing house, you are at once ensconced by shelves of books and a warm glow that emanates from yellow bulbs. Casually scattered chairs and tables invite you to let your hair down. Strains of Bade Ghulam Ali Khan can be heard in the background.  A poster of the freedom fighter Bhagat Singh is strategically hung. As I try to identify and place in context the several colourful pictures, posters and hangings, two of my companions examine the various titles which populate the shelves.

There are books on and by Karl Marx, Che Guevara, Antonio Gramsci, Fidel Castro, Rosa Luxemburg and EMS Namboodiripad. Books on liberalism, nationalism and anarchism share space with books such as Women in Malayalam Cinema, Melodrama and the Nation, and Cinema for Beginners. There are also titles by publishing houses such as Oxford and Sage.

Leading left-wing theatre activist Sudhanva Deshpande, who manages the bookstore and the cafe, acquaints us with the ideas underlying the establishment.

“There was an increasing recognition of the need for alternative spaces where people can meet and have meaningful progressive culture and discussions. The cafe is an outcome of the recognition of this need.” Deshpande credits the space to be a product of the ideas of communist playwright-actor Safdar Hashmi, who wanted to build a left-wing cultural centre in a lower middle class or working class area of Delhi.

“Some of the things that we are doing are directly linked with what Safdar wanted to do. We owe a creative, political, emotional and intellectual debt to Safdar: this was his vision,” he says.

The room adjacent to May Day, which is owned by Jan Natya Manch and is called Studio Safdar, holds movie and documentary screenings, music and theatre performances and book readings. The day we were there, a screening of the Kannada movie Gulabi Talkies was on.

“The bookstore, cafe and Studio Safdar are technically different spaces, but experientially, they are one integrated space. As soon as the screening finishes, we’ll serve tea and coffee,” Deshpande says.

A white electric kettle, which bears a small but prominent sticker of a red hammer and sickle, has water poured into it for boiling. The sticker can be seen on a lot of other items too. “We are not neutral. We do have a point of view which we will state,” he says. Noting that the idea of a political cafe is not common in India, he points out that across the world, it has been part of the left movement. “Why not us? We wanted to have an alternative space which is not alternative in a vague sort of way, but is consciously left-wing. The idea was to create a left-wing hub where people can have debates and discussions.”

Doesn’t the conscious projection of the space as left-wing make it exclusionary?  Deshpande replies: “Why should it be exclusionary? You could agree with us, or have a contrary point of view within or outside the left. You could think that we are off our rocker, that’s fine too! But don’t stop us from projecting our view.”

Deshpande rustles up tea, coffee and lime water for whoever walks into the cafe. Perched on a high stool, leaning over a counter which looks like it belongs in a kitchen, the feeling is increasingly of being in someone’s home.

One reason could be that all the possessions of the cafe are donations from different people. Voluntary contributions, monetary and in kind, finance the running of May Day. The lime soda and coffee which we consume are not offered at fixed tariffs. You can pay what you like for them. Patties, pakodas, biscuits and puffs are locally sourced from the community. 

Involvement of the community is critical to the broader vision of the bookstore. In response to the opinion that a cafe embodies a rarefied space, Deshpande tells of rickshaw-pullers who come in every morning to drink and replenish drinking water, of a woman who visits the cafe to sell samosas and of eager little boys who drop by to read children’s books. The local residents too are getting involved and are becoming regulars for the activities at May Day and Studio Safdar.

“This place must never become an ivory tower or elitist, if it does, then I think we have let Safdar down. This is a community space meant for participation by ordinary people, workers and middle-class folk,” Deshpande sums up.