Harmony The Book Shop

A very small English-language bookshop a few steps from Assi Ghat, easy to walk past because it is one room and looks like nothing from the lane. That is the only reason it stays a secret: for decades it has been a neighbourhood fixture, and Scroll.in wrote it a fond profile when the pandemic emptied the ghats. The shelves mix Indology and social science with spirituality, art books and literary fiction, and the owner's recommendations are half the reason people come back. A natural stop after morning chai at Assi.

One room, deep shelves and the owner's recommendations, a minute from Assi Ghat