The 22nd Hyderabad Book Fair got off to a start yesterday evening at the Necklace Road without much fanfare. Being the inaugural day, there was no entry ticket which otherwise is Rs.5 per person. For some strange reason, that I’ve noticed over the years, not many of the book stalls are up by the time of the opening. With nearly half the stalls filled up yesterday, it was better than last year when only a couple of stalls were open on the inaugural day. Maybe because it is Hyderabad, the publishers too might be adopting the laidback style of doing things at a slow pace.
As usual, The Hindu group of publications had its stall open on the first day itself. Every year I always buy their Sportstar caps and this year too they were on sale. Another significant happening was that the top four second hand booksellers in Hyderabad had stalls at the fair which goes to say the appeal of the second hand book. It is a welcome change. There were the usual stalls of all the important publishing houses of the country. Every year more and more magazine publishers are putting up stalls in the fair. This year I guess it is the ‘Outlook’ group that has entered for the first time.
Half the stalls were yet to be set up and maybe today they would have been all filled up. I hadn’t been there today. Oddly, the organizers of the Book Fair were giving speeches in Shudh Hindi at the inaugural function though Telugu and English are spoken in Hyderabad more than that type of Hindi. Curiously, there were only one or two stalls of Hindi publishers.
As usual, The Hindu group of publications had its stall open on the first day itself. Every year I always buy their Sportstar caps and this year too they were on sale. Another significant happening was that the top four second hand booksellers in Hyderabad had stalls at the fair which goes to say the appeal of the second hand book. It is a welcome change. There were the usual stalls of all the important publishing houses of the country. Every year more and more magazine publishers are putting up stalls in the fair. This year I guess it is the ‘Outlook’ group that has entered for the first time.
Half the stalls were yet to be set up and maybe today they would have been all filled up. I hadn’t been there today. Oddly, the organizers of the Book Fair were giving speeches in Shudh Hindi at the inaugural function though Telugu and English are spoken in Hyderabad more than that type of Hindi. Curiously, there were only one or two stalls of Hindi publishers.
More about the Book Fair events in subsequent posts. The book fair is a ten day event and will be on until the 17th of this month. I plan to visit on Sunday afternoon with the family
2 comments:
Thank You for the info. I wonder who are the organisers though. I wish such events are publicized and promoted in a better way and then I am sure the response would be really good unlike the assumption that such fairs get luke warm response in Hyderabad.
Thanks, Rajeshwari. There is an organising committee for it. It has been fairly well advertised in the papers and also the television. I hope you have been to the Book Fair.
Vinod
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