After the partition of India in 1947, just like several displaced families who lost their homes and belongings and found new ones, sometimes travelling hundreds of kilometres in one night, a family left Pakistan and came across the border to India and settled in Ferozpur. Lala Narain Das, the head of the family began selling newspapers on his bicycle and then opened a bookstore to cater to the demands of the army offices in the cantonment. Gradually the store grew and the boys of the family were trained and sent to different parts of India to set up their own bookstores.

A few years later, Lala Narain Das’ three sons shifted to Dehra Dun, a valley in the foothills of the Himalayas and ran a bookstore. After a few years, the three brothers set up their own separate book businesses with Sohan Lal Arora setting up Natraj: a publishing firm that specialised in books on defence and military affairs.

Natraj was born in a small office and gradually spread its wings and expanded into a small bookstore. Sohan Lal’s eldest son, Upendra began working with him after his graduation and felt the need to also publish books on ecology, a hitherto ignored subject. This led to a further expansion of the publishing firm and the bookstore and ‘The Green Bookshop’ came into being. Upendra Arora is a today well known name among the publishing fraternity, and in the state of Uttarakhand. Peter Hopkirk’s “In Search of Kim” carries a mention of his meeting with Upendra Arora and India’s best loved writer, Ruskin Bond has dedicated a book to Upendra, who he says belongs to the unique tribe booksellers who actually care about books and authors.