Kolkata hosts book fair at housing complexes
KOLKATA: The Publishers & Booksellers Guild, organisers of the International Kolkata Book Fair, are organising 'Tomar Amar Boimela' at housing complexes in the city to raise awareness of Bengali books and at the same time connect readers to the authors.
The inauguration of the first event took place in the community centre of Regent Park Government Housing Estate on Friday evening, in the presence of eminent personalities like Hiran Mitra, Arun Mukhopadhyay and Jayanta Dey. The fair will continue till Sunday.
The second fair will take place from July 1 to 3 at Utsav - Utsarg apartment in Santoshpur and the third fair is scheduled to take place from July 15 to 17 at FD Block in Salt Lake. "Any kind of pop-up fairs organised by us only have our publishers. English and Bengali are the two languages we are focusing on. We have around 35 publishers. There are 80 per cent Bengali and 20 per cent English books available," one of the organisers said.It is not like the usual book fair with stalls. The fair takes place inside the community centres and books are kept on several tables, one beside the other. It is more like a pop-up fair. They have at least 4000 books kept there, which includes children books, story books, amongst other things. The purpose is to help youngsters inculcate reading habits.
The fair targets complexes across Kolkata at present. "We plan to go outside Bengal and Kolkata for more book promoting activities," the organiser said.
The organisers said that people were excited. Especially since it was the first time that such an event was taking place post-pandemic. Moreover, the people from complexes are actively participating and helping with coordination, the organiser added.With every fair, they also hold discussions on topics with relation to the importance of books especially at a time of social media influence. On Friday, the organisers saw a satisfactory footfall and are expecting it to increase because of the weekend.
"This is an initiative of the Guild to raise book awareness and connect with Bengali book readers, old and young which we have aimed for long to satiate the thirst of bibliophiles in the cultural capital of India," Publishers and Booksellers Guild's Secretary Tridib Kumar Chattopadhyay said.
