The second edition of Amdavad National Book Fair concluded yesterday. After paying five visits to this week-long fair, here is a quick note:

-Last year the first Amdavad National Book Fair was held at Sabarmati river front. The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation had to bear costs of AC tent. It was good that the event was shifted to Gujarat University’s hall this year. The hall is already air conditioned. Moreover there are AC auditoriums too within the complex. The auditorium was very much occupied during the evening events. Such a huge presence of people could not be accommodated in any size of tent auditorium at Sabarmati river front.

-Like last year, this year too there were great number of religious books stalls. There were half a dozen Islamic literature stalls, and same number of Christian and Hindu institutions’ stalls. Islamic stalls were active in preaching. Christian stalls were offering free literature. Among Hindu stalls, Swami Vivekananda’s stall was offering Swami’s statue to calendar to books – everything you can imagine. Asaram Bapu’s stall was offering free calendar and palash drink. Gayatri Pariwar, Chinmayananda, Arya Samaj were busy selling their literature. ISKCON had deployed good strength of its volunteers at its two-three stalls. They were active in preaching outside the stall. Then there were couple of Japanese alternative religions stalls and number of other Gurus. AMC may next time please allot stalls to religious literature sellers in one single lane. Preferably in the last lane.

-It seems many titles of English novels don’t sell much. In one stall English novels were available for Rs 20, in another stall any three novels were available for Rs 100, in one more stall any novel was available for Rs 100.

-But good discount was not just limited to novels. There was a stall where excellent western books full of knowledge were available for Rs. 100 and Rs. 200. I purchased full size American History book with hundreds of color picture for Rs 200. Similarly I purchased a pictorial book of world history for Rs 100 at this stall.

-One stall of Bohrajis from Mumbai was selling old books for throwaway prices. Some books were available for Rs25 and many for Rs 50. Old bulky magazines and books were available for Rs 100 to 200. They were used books of course, but the price was amazing. There was constant rush at this stall throughout the fair.

–Which was the costliest book in this fair? Well, it was very difficult to search. But if you ask which was the costliest Gujarati book in this fair, then I have an answer. The book compiled by former Gujarat Government man Sudhir Rawal, priced at Rs 3995 was probably the costliest single book in entire fair. This book with 800+ color pages was published in September 2012. It contains series of articles on positive sides of Modi decade in Gujarat. The book was available at ‘Book mark’ stall of Navbharat prakashan. When it comes to the costliest Gujarati books available in this fair, the second position was occupied by Akshara Prakashan’s book ‘Atulya Bharat’ by Rajni Vyas which has 800+ color pages. It was priced at Rs 3,000. Now this was about single titles. But if we count a set of volumes, then Rajkot based Pravin Prakashan’s series of volumes on ‘Mahabharata’ and ‘Bhagvadgomandal’ were two costliest sets. Full set of Mahabharata was costing Rs 10,000 while Bhagvadomandal set was available for Rs 9,000.

-When it comes to quality of books, this year’s book fair was better compared to last year. Last year there were books for average reader, but this year the book fair catered books for all class. There were good choices for class-1 readers.

I attended couple of auditorium events(and what a superb auditorium this is, excellent AC, chairs, size, ambiance, but can they put lights outside the exit? Senior citizens were facing great difficulty stepping outside the exit door, especially on steps) . The event where Shahbuddin Rathod, Parag Kansara, Mahesh Shastri were to speak was houseful. Around 100 to 150 people were standing because there was no seat. Similarly the session where Vinod Bhatt, Upendra Trivedi and Raghuvir Chaudhary etc were to speak was nearly houseful. Humourist Vinod Bhatt’s speech received overwhelming response in last day session. Vinodbhai stopped twice, but people just didn’t allow him to stop. He was asked again and again to stretch his speech longer.It was 11.06 pm when people in auditorium ultimately allowed him to stop. During Vinod Bhatt’s around 50 minute speech, people laughed for at least two dozen times.

-To scale up, next time AMC should rope in Chetan Bhagat, Rashmi Bansal, Shiv Khera, Devdutt Patnaik and other nationally successful authors too in one national session. It will add new audience to the event.

-Most of the Gujarati books stalls were offering same titles. There was quite a much repetition. Like say, the Gujarati translation copy of Chetan Bhagat, Steve Jobs, Mehula etc English books was available at every Gujarati book stall.

-The E-book section was token, but good attempt to introduce the world of E-book to visitors. There was a stall promoting Gujarati applications(for ios and android) too!

-I must congratulate Mr. Modi for the idea of book fair, and Municipal Commissioner for its decent implementation. I have no words to thank the AMC and the Government of Gujarat. The event is getting better year-by-year and I can imagine what would be the possible scale of this event in fifth or tenth year(this is just second year)!