My association with the Book Fair goes back to the days when I had just started bearing the idea of what books were. I was born in a typical Kolkata family where books are valued and archived. This is one of the many common things which run in the households of my city, the others being a compilation of Tagore’s works, immense love for all culinary delicacies and an album of Mohiner Ghoraguli.“Book Fair! So it is an entire fair dedicated to books?”
“Yes, lots of books from home and abroad.”
My father had a rather simple way of explaining the concept of a fair dedicated completely to books to me.
That was many years ago. Since then, many things have changed -“Calcutta” is now called “Kolkata”, the venue of the fair has moved from “Kolkata Maidan” to a much more organised and environment friendly “Milan Mela grounds” and I have outgrown a grey hair or two.In between all that, the book fair has managed to become something that I look forward to, every year. Not only because it is about one of my favourite things – books, but also about a few of my favourite people.
The Book Fair was not just a matter of a few days; it was months of preparation and hard work for the the organizers as well as the writers. Way back in the late 90s, when Facebook and Twitter were a near future, the writers and translators depended on these fairs as a platform to get known to the world.This annual cultural event is actually potpourri of books, friends, nostalgia, music, food, people and of course, ‘adda’.
My first memories of the book fair relates to buying “Nonte Phonte” comic books or Chinese short story books translated in Bengali while holding my father’s hands. He was the one who introduced me to the world of 'Calcutta' Book Fair. During those days, the fair used to be held at Kolkata Maidan. I was barely six or seven and the mighty gates, huge crowds and the sight of the imposing Victoria Memorial nearby, sketched a picture of molten warmth wrapped Kolkata winter in my mind. Somehow, that is one imagery of Kolkata that has remained with me always.
I used to stare at the huge volumes of “Sarat Rochonaboli” or works of Sunil Gangopadhyay on the racks while my father said – “Ogulo na boroder boi, boro holey porbey, kemon?” (Those are books for grown-ups. You can read them when you are a grown-up too.)Time, they say, waits for none. While ‘growing up’ I still visited Book fair religiously with my father every year but I also went back several times every year along with my friends. I progressed from Feluda to a more mature Byomkesh or the complex Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot on the ‘detective’ stories front.
My annual trips to book fair also gradually turned out to be ones where I would buy new novels of Suchitra Bhattacharya, get acquainted with the classic works of Jane Austen and Ashapurna Devi.
I was not living anymore in Kolkata when the venue shifted to Milan Mela grounds. As I read the news, my heart longed for the the Benfish stall right in the middle of the fair. Okay, I confess. I ate all of them. Because one should never book-hunt on an empty stomach. Or discriminate between the Coffee House laddoo, the Rollick ice cream, the Fish Fry from Benfish and the Paan from Mantu’s.
I did not attend the fair for many years in between. When I returned to live in Kolkata again, many a fancy new book stores had opened up in the city while the eternal College Street was always there, yet the joy of smelling a bag full of fresh new books bought at the book fair had not waned a bit. Just the way, the ritual of holding hands with your first love and gathering at the book fair to share your story with a set of trusted friends never gets old.The eternally youthful city the continues to discuss which stall has the biggest queue, which new author is asking the most uncomfortable questions through the pen or just breaks into a new song of hope, every now and then.
Kolkata Book Fair is actually a celebration of our lives, of good old charm of Kolkata, of winter afternoons, of books and old friends and first loves – first loves which were about old Bengali classics and the fragrance of the ‘forbidden’ hidden inside the first read Saratchandra novel.
