By NaSa
People come and go in our lives. Each and every one of them has a specific role to play in shaping up our personality, our likes and dislikes; especially the ones who we like or once liked. Seven, eight years ago, there was one such person in my life with whom I went to the New Delhi World Book Fair (NDWBF) for the first time. In retrospect, I feel that probably he came in my life only to introduce me to the book fair and stimulate in me an interest in writing. Since then, my affair with the Book Fair has been going on and strong with each passing year.
As many times I went to the NDWBF earlier, I went there to purchase books and to only purchase books. Now that I have started writing, my perspective for the fair has widened. This time around, I connected with the fair in a true sense for the first time. I could feel the vibes of book lovers, the hard work of organisers and publishers and writers, and the air of intellectuality.
As soon as I entered the first hall, I saw an ocean of books. You name it and you have it. I found the title and covers of books so interesting that I felt like trying all of them but I succumbed to my humanly inability to do so and decided to buy the ones that I could actually manage to complete reading. So I bought only two books for myself this time. One was the Pay-Per-Click – Search Engine Marketing, by David Szetela and Joseph Kerschbaum. I bought it because I am into the Website business now and this book can be my guide for the same. The other one was a cute little book called Agatha Christie’s Poirot – The Essential Novels in One Sitting. I liked this particular book because it’s small enough to be carried along in my sling bag as well; however, its print is convenient and strain free. The number of my personal book buys stopped at only two, which is like ending at barely starting. It is because still there’s a whole year to go and I also get lured by the online offers on books. 🙂
Nevertheless, I got 10 books for my 4.5 year old. Seems funny, isn’t it? 10 books for a Nursery goer and 2 for his mother. But this is what marketing does to you. Like the well-thought-of marketing scheme of Har Anand Publications did to the customer in me who was searching for the maximum value for money. I got a set of 10 classics for 400 INR – suitably abridged for kids. And those classics are: ‘A tale of two cities,’ ‘Travels of Gulliver,’ ‘Far from the Madding Crowd,’ ‘Jane Eyre,’ ‘Oliver Twist,’ ‘The adventures of Tom Sawyer,’ ‘Heidi,’ ‘The three Musketeers,’ ‘Huckleberry Finn,’ and ‘Black Beauty.’ I thought these books could add to his stock of bed-time stories.
Next, I happen to visit the stall of the Mumbai-based Spellbound Kid’s bookstore, where I met Mrs. Hemangini Babla. I was impressed by the collection and quality of their books. Mrs. Babla also told me that they are exclusive India distributors of Letterland – Child-friendly Phonics. Mrs. Babla has an innate love for books, probably the reason of her into the profession of books. Besides, she is also an English teacher and trainer.
Books can’t talk and you only get to read the stories printed in them but it’s always good to talk to people who are into business of books; it gives you the story behind the books as well.
Besides, this time around I happened to see the nukkad natak of the ‘Vayam’ society from the Shivaji college, Delhi University. They performed on the theme concerning the maltreatment with the senior citizens. Theme was good so was their performance. But I wanted to know how they thought of performing at the book fair? To this, one of the performers of the Vayam society, Aakash, told me that they had been approached by an author whose book on the same theme was launched at the Author’s corner in that particular hall around an hour before I reached there. He also said that they found the book fair to be a good place to perform because the crowd there was intellectual so the message their nukkad natak gave was well received and absorbed.
This time, my visit to the fair had an additional purpose of getting some stories behind the books and I am glad I could manage to get a couple of them.
Oh yes! How can I forget to share I happened to bump into Mr. Yogendra Yadav. 🙂
What are your experiences of the New Delhi World Book Fair? What all have you brought along?
Image credit: Pixabay
