Kolkata recently held its 35th Annual book fair,better known as ‘Boi Mela’. It was inaugurated on 25th evening and the next day,26th Jan –Republic Day-National Holiday, people thronged the stalls and the Milan Mela ground saw almost 2 lakh footfalls.It was crowded like the local sealdah-bound trains on weekday office opening hours. People were brushing across each other more than brushing through the books; some young boys had the time of their life.
Some hundreds of stalls were setup, with almost every publishing house,library,embassy,club setting up one. Security check was brisk and negligent. You might think it must be one helluva job for the security personnel to frisk every individual. I would have agreed, but sample this. The Gates did not have female security so, Lady Bin Laden could have carried a sack full of RDX, gelatin sticks and adequate detonators. But hey, wouldn’t that trigger the metal detector. Oh yes that would, only if it was turned on. Kolkata police has immense trust in its intuitive abilities,like the other security agencies that guard the city malls.
However the situation was not so despicable when I went there the other 3 times. At least they had female security at the gates, so what if most of the time they were gossiping. Their presence was divine.
I have been in love with ‘Boi Mela’since my 1st year in college and Kolkata. Its crowded, its dusty and its in hollers but the sight of innumerous books marvelously arranged in piles and rows draws your attention. There are hardbound, paperbacks, some plastic bounded too. Some books which are unheard and dug out from past, few new releases, some amorously decorated novels and humming girls around that section, some thin,limp book written by a renowned author and excessively priced. Every stall has a classics section, a bestseller’s collection and one section which only draws intellectually vibrant people, who more or less resemble each other, with thick myopic glasses resting on the brim of their nose and an unnoticed faint smile on their lips.To me those people have attained nirvana. Who else would read a speaking tree?
But there is one section which attracts me the most. The stalls with no names. The stalls, which house those books which cannot be found in the rarest of rare stores. These are books which are written by anonymous writers and bards from the underprivileged villages and small towns. Written in vernaculars and printed on the most inferior quality papers, it sells for Rs.25 to 75 depending on the thickness and not quality of content. These stalls were sandwiched between big publishing houses, and covered with advertisement of Gramin-Udhyogik bank or a so and so NGO.
Girls not more than 16years of age welcome you with a smile that never dies out. The sparse crowd attracted to it hurts me. Perhaps, it is lack of information that stops people from visiting such master-suites of knowledge and literature. Therefore, over the past 3 years I have seen a huge dip in the number of these stalls. From 6 they dropped down to 4 and this year only 1. Upon asking those smiling hosts, about the thinning stalls I got to know that the expense of travelling and publishing these snippets turns out to be more than the profit earned. It’s with the help from an NGO that this stall is still functional. But, there is no assurance for the next year.
I was moved. And there I decided to do the best I can to revive these stores.
But apparently, that was just the feel of the hour. What could I do, but speak and write about these poor intellectuals and their pool of talent. And I am sure it’s not the matter of only Kolkata book –fair. It must be countrywide.
So It is my earnest request to you all, please spread this awareness among people. And its not charity. No... It is the appreciation of art and literature.
