Champaca, Bengaluru. A platform for books, zines and fanzines to defend the indie-publishing scene

On the rooftop of a bungalow, a metal-staircase takes you to the store that opens into a courtyard. Founder Radhika Timbadia wanted to create a sanctuary hide-away from the city lights and traffic

Champaca, Bengaluru

Radhika Timbadia founded Champaca Bookstore, Bengaluru, Library and Cafe, in June 2019 in the metropolitan city of Bengaluru, South India.

According to Tibetan beliefs, the Buddha of the next era will find enlightenment under the flower canopy of the champaca tree

Magnolia champaca belongs to the botanical family Magnoliaceae. Native to Southeast Asia, the tree is known for its yellow flowers, which carry a fragrance of tea, spices and dried apricots, not unlike orange blossom. Oil extracted from the flowers is used in aromatherapy and ointments, and the blossoms are offered in temple ceremonies across cultures.

The team curates wildlife and ecology, queer stories, feminist writing, folklore, caste, poetry and translations from regional languages

Champaca is an independently owned, women-run bookstore and cafe that thrives on its community of readers. Alongside those genres sit politics, mental health, humour and fiction. The store also gives shelf space to books, zines and fanzines by emerging authors, backing indie publishing directly.

“I have had a fondness for the outdoors since childhood. I grew up in Bombay, where we did not have access to green landscapes”

Born in Mumbai, Timbadia moved to Bengaluru at nineteen. That early pull towards the outdoors led her to study botany, chemistry and environmental sciences. She worked on a hill-restoration project in Tamil Nadu, then took a Master’s in Applied Ecology and Conservation at the University of East Anglia, UK. She also worked in Kenyan national museums before returning to India to support snow leopard conservation in Ladakh. Her expertise in community-based wildlife conservation runs alongside interests in gender, environment and education. Reading came early too: «I adored listening to my father’s stories.»

A bookstore that celebrates diversity, underrepresented authors and themes

The idea for a stand-alone bookstore arrived while Timbadia was reading reviews of authors like Octavia Butler, N.K. Jemisin and Ursula K. Le Guin, and had nowhere obvious to buy their books.

She spent three years preparing the business plan, completing a library educator’s course at the Bookworm Trust in Goa and working with school libraries to write grants. Her time in village communities is what convinced her to build a children’s library into the store.

Spread across 950 square feet, the store has no segregated sections, encouraging visitors to stroll freely

Champaca opened in the summer of 2019, with a cafe alongside the bookstore to encourage readers to linger. Bengaluru-based designer Akshara reimagined the interiors while keeping the original elements: Mangalore terracotta tiles, Kerala wooden pillars, a courtyard and a hundred-year-old jharokha. A rooftop metal staircase leads into the courtyard, with a children’s library on one side and seating on the other. Glass panels and bamboo mats let the sunlight in, bamboo-fibre lanterns hang from the ceiling, and floor-to-ceiling shelves come with ladders for browsing.

The L-shaped cafe table overlooks an avocado tree, and the signage reminds visitors: “Don’t feed the books”

Indoor potted plants improve the air quality, and the store has planted a champaca tree to honour its namesake. The logo, designed by Kriti Monga, sets a sambar deer and a drongo bird alongside the champaca flower. The menu, curated by Sarah Edward of Copper and Cloves, leans on local dishes and sourdough from neighbourhood bakeries; for now, it runs to coffee, teas, cakes and desserts.

Shelves feature caste narratives, dystopian futures, mental health memoirs, sari-bound poetry, and translations from over twenty languages

Curation is built around conversation and discovery. Kavya Murthy and Thejaswi Shivanand consult as editors, and the team selects for diversity of geography, gender, language and ethnicity. More than 6,000 titles are displayed on thematic tables that change monthly, with independent publishers pushed to the front.

Books for Now explores timeless texts such as Hannah Arendt’s Origins of Totalitarianismand Siddalingaiah’s A Word With You

Champaca hosts events with indie publishers including Yoda Press, Red River and Tara Books, as well as artists, zinemakers and film collectives; the series also makes room for transgender voices in literature. Post-pandemic, the store runs online book discussions and subscriptions, delivering curated books to readers.

The store contributes to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, working with the Bengaluru Sustainability Forum and Science Gallery Bengaluru to promote books on sustainable cities, health and gender equity.

Champaca

7/1, Edward Road, Off Queens Rd, Vasanth Nagar, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India