World Book Fair 2016 at Delhi

The World Book Fair is going on from to Jan 9-17 at Pragati Maidan, Delhi. The timing is from 11 am to 8 pm. We visited the fair on Sunday and had a great time J.  We arrived quite early, around 11 and found many people standing in a queue in front of the main gate, which was something new to us, generally we don't find many people in Delhi interested in books.  

There was a fountain in front of the Ticket Counter :)

We visited the ‘National Book Trust’ stall. A significant stall having many types of books. They are working so sincerely in this field!

We also came across the stall of ‘Sanskriti Bharati’, this organisation is doing a great work in making Sanskrit popular in today’s world. Great work indeed!

We also found 4- 5 Bengali Book Stalls who have come from Kolkata. Among them was the stall of the ‘Publishers and Booksellers Guild’ of Kolkata.

The stall of ‘Penguin Random’ was a big big one, both area wise and content wise. They had so many books of various types, attracting much crowd.

We visited the stall of ‘Gita Press’, Gorakhpur. After hearing the recent disheartening news about the closure of the publication house, we were very happy to find the stall in the fair, with many books in many languages. And as always, the stall was crowded :).

Here is a unique decoration by papers, in the stall of ‘Bharati Bhavan’.

There was an exhibition of Manuscripts in one of the halls. They displayed many old manuscripts of various languages, mentioning the writer, the time of composition and the language. It was wonderful to go through them.  It war organised by the ‘National Mission for Manuscripts’. Very sincere work they are doing.  Here in this exhibition, general public could have a look at their endeavors which otherwise we don't have any other way to know.

 

In the same room there were the photos and information about the World Heritage Sites of India. We enjoyed that as well. The whole exhibition was named - Vividh Bharat.

In the afternoon we took lunch at the Food Court. Nice ambiance there.

There is a lake at Pragati Maidan in the middle of the halls. The lake has many fountains in it. Here is the picture of some of them :).

I was very happy to visit the fair. The enthusiasm which was noticed in the visitors about books were so encouraging! It opposed the idea that books have become less popular these days. Being a Sunday, the fair became really crowded in the afternoon, when we were returning home. Book Fair is characterized by this gathering of people, the jostling and pushing in the stalls have a distinctive charm altogether, so familiar in any book fair J.

We visited many many stalls, here mentioned the names of only a few.

I wish the fair to do a good business in the city.

With lots of best wishes.


Hari Aum.