Varalotti in Madurai Book Fair! Pictures!

Most Gracious ILites,

We have our annual BAPASI Book Fair in Madurai. It is in Tamukkam Grounds, the place where most of the meetings and fairs are held.

This time the book fair is a really grand affair. There are totally 204 stalls. And a rough calculation shows that there are totally ten million books(one crore) on display.

The focus is mainly on Tamil books, though English books are also there. The notable books are Jeyakanthan's short story collections, his drama collections, Ashoka Mitran's essays, Prapanjan's works, Sirpi's works, Sa. Kandasamy's stories - the list is endless.

And the kind of crowd you get every day, it is unbelievable. A matter of pride for us Maduraiites is that this book fair has been a greater crowd puller than the annual Chitra Exhibition which will be a veritable trade fair during the Chitra Festival.

During weekends and on public holidays the crowd is simply unmanageable.
Entry is free. Just outside the main entrance you have a whole range of eatables. Milakai Bajji (chilli bajji, not capsicum, but just plain green chillies) and Delhi Appalam (about three times the size of a normal appalam) liberally sprinkled with chilly powder are delicacies. Then we have cabbage bajji, sugar cane juice, panju mittai, HPMC's apple juice, lichi juice, hot pop corn etc.

My publisher Kavitha Publications had a novel promotion technique this time. The laminated pictures of their top thirty authors adorn their stall.

Along with such big guns like Jeyakanthan, Asoka Mitran, Prapanjan, Sirpi and all, yours truly's picture also appears.

What happens when a child suddenly sees his picture in his school, hanging in the headmaster's room? He rushes home to tell his mother. May be drag her to the school to see his picture.

Instead of dragging you all over there I am dragging the picture to you. Have a look. When I was taking the pictue I also witnessed the rare sight of my wife being absorbed in reading the blurbs of my books. Have captured that also for you.

Love,

 

Here's the second picture.

 

Dear Sunitha,
When I posted the picture it was 11:10, 11:15. Normally I hit the sack around that time. As I am training myself in the use of a newly acquired digital camera I was sitting up late.
Thanks for your kind wishes.
regards,

 

Dear Kamla,
Thanks a ton for those kind words. By now you all know that I am an expert in messing up things. Yesterday we had gone for shopping and I took my new toy, my daughters digital camera along. As we were returning home I told my wife why don't we visit the book fair, just see the stall where my works are displayed.
Normally she is enthusiastic about such things. But yesterday was different. She very closely follows a Hindi Serial which is on air at nine pm. It was 8 15 when I told her about the book-fair visit. She resisted, I pleaded, she resisted again, I pleaded again and finally she relented.
To save time we parked the car away from the book fair venue so that there will not be any difficulty in retrieving it. We went there took the pictures and were about to run out when a very heavy rain started. We could not move out of the book fair grounds. (of course it was covered). We waited for the rain to slow down. All the while my wife was cursing me that I made her miss her TV serial.

Piqued by guilt I told her that we could run to the car as the rains have slowed down a little. Had the car been parked in the Grounds we could have reached it sooner. But as it was outside we had to wade through ankle deep water and by the time we reached the car we were drenched to the roots. Still I managed to drive the car fast to reach home by 9 :03, just three minutes after her serial's scheduled start time.

She rushed to the TV switched it on to find some other programme was running. Then only we realised that yesterday being Independence day, that channel was not telecasting the regular serials.

So if you take a close look at Indhusri, you will find the tension and restlessness. ha ha ha.
L,
sridhar

 

Dear TDU,

Thanks for the kind words. To just give an inkling of my role, or the role of my books there in the Book Fair, there are about 10 million books in the fair and five of my books are under display. Of course that 10 million includes multiple copies. So my proportion will be roughly 250 out of 10 million.

While on this, I want to know about the very handsome man in the picture in your "avatar" . Is it you? You look great TDU.
regards,