Vijaya Bharatham which is considered to be the press wing of RSS was a stall were many oldies were found since it was selling holy books relating to Hindus along with few books relating to success stories of BJP ruling states. An old man who was in-charge of the stall who was having sound knowledge about the books was also considered to be the attracting factor for that stall. The way he volunteered himself explaining about the books to many irrespective of their ages who were visiting the stall including myself made me purchase 7 books in that stall. Point to be noted is most of the books in this stall was written by Swami Chithbavanandhar who had a separate stall as well sponsored by him with limited books compared to Vijaya Bharatham stall.
Another stall which impressed many including myself was MOLI (மொழி) which was selling T-shirts with Tamil fonts printed in it. This is the first time I see Tamil fonts printed in T-shirts & hence I bought 2 which had fonts அ & யாதும் ஊரே யாவரும் கேளிர் @ affordable price of Rs. 260 each. The same stall also had books relating to “Rights To Information”.
The Reserve Bank of India also had a stall with books relating to the banking exams but since not more than 100 books was there in the stall there by failing to attract the visitors. Not sure how much I purchased Mahathma Gandhi’s “Sathya Sodhanai” before 4 years but currently it was sold for just Rs. 27. Odd to see Mahathma’s words became so cheap while few non-sense books were very expensive.
Another feature which I noted was the stalls installed by / for / to muslims which had ONLY books relating to their religion. Hope that could be the reason for those stall which was not able to attract even a single customer in due course of around 5 hours the time I spent in the book fair. There was one such stall in each row – is it based on the Government’s reservation policy for the minority? If so, why was there not even a single stall by Christians who were supposed to be famous for preaching.
Film Industry’s so called Markandeyan – “Sivakumar’s Diary” with the content of his life journey from the day one till date on his travel in film industry was also playing a role in the book fair along with his elder Son Surya who also wrote a book named “Ippadiku Surya”. I still doubt whether he had come across so many things to write a book.
Another unique stall in the book fair was the one by a Punjabi with scientific related items which attracted many kids / youths. I was not able to control my laughter listening to a conversation by a modern English speaking youth to the shopkeeper in OCEAN stall which was selling things relating to puzzles / mind games.
Customer : What is the cost of this cube?
Shopkeeper : 3 X 3 cube costs Rs. 100 & 5 X 5 costs Rs. 250
Customer : Why is this much costly since it’s just a box with few colors sticked on it?
I could get it for Rs. 20 in the market outside.
Shopkeeper
(reacting in anger /
ignorance of customer) : Sir, this is a puzzle cube where you need to arrange similar colours in one
side.
Customer : Why do I need to arrange when it is already arranged? You guys cheating..
Shopkeeper : !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
When compared to last year, I was able to see more stalls relating to e-books giving pamphlets about their sites & also education related stalls which was explaining about online courses available from PRE-KG to PG as well as professional courses. Hope in forthcoming book-fair these type of stalls would play a pre-dominant role.
Opposite to OSHO stall was a space for writer – reader conversation but unfortunately no writer was available to have a chat due to which the oldies & kids who visited the book-fair was using it to take a break. Former CM Mr. Karunanidhi was well remembered & praised for his dominancy in Tamil literature & vocabulary. Stall named “Kalainjar Karvoolam” was there which had almost all the books written by the great politician cum writer. Last time there was a stall by Periyar university which had books relating to Periyar & also his bio-graphy. But this time the same stall had only books written by Veeramani who is the successor of Periyar who founded the Dravidar Kalagam.
Life will be incomplete without friends; likewise my purchase would be incomplete without sukhabodhananda’s books. So வார்தை இல்லதா ஞானம் (WORDLESS WISDOM) made my purchase complete in the book-fair.
