Exploring one of the largest Book Fairs: New Delhi World Book Fair, 2024

I must confess, I have never been to a book fair, at least not at the scale of what I have recently been to. The New Delhi World Book Fair was organised last month from 10-18th Feb. It has been organised annually for the last 51 years by the National Book Trust, India (under the Ministry of Education).

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I decided to move my lazy self and see what the buzz was all about. I had been missing it for the past couple of years for one reason or another, but not anymore!

On a bright Saturday morning, I picked up my backpack and left to experience it. It was held in the newly constructed Hall 1-5 in Pragati Maidan, which was close to the metro station. So, it wasn't much of a hassle.

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I expected a huge crowd and it was just as I expected. Most of them were young people, some had come in big groups, others with their families including children. There were so many children in school uniforms too.

The theme for this fair was Multi-Lingual India which had over 2000 stalls in multiple languages.

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Each Hall had a sub-theme too, some hosted activities for children, and others had events like authors' corner, cultural programs etc.

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It was a paradise for book lovers, with so many books both in regional languages and from International authors. A lot of stalls were selling books at heavy discounts too!

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All the major publishers were there selling all kinds of books ranging from fiction, biographies, self-coaching books for students, short stories, spirituality, Ayurvedic medicines and so on.

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I was mostly browsing going from one stall to another. I saw my favourite author, Munshi Premchand, one of the most prominent and influential names in the world of Hindi literature.

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He wrote a lot of short stories, novels and essays during the early 20th century and his writings depict a deep understanding of human emotions and the society of pre-independent India. I love his works and read quite a lot. How could I miss buying a book?

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I got a book with a collection of 51 short stories he wrote. I have read almost half of them already but this was a perfect one for a quick read just before going to bed. If my memory serves well, I read the first story, "पूस की रात"/"Poos Ki Raat", on one of my live Ecency shows. @bhattg and @inuke bhai would remember this one...right?

I wanted to buy something for my nephew who is almost one and a half and just starting to talk a few words. I found some nice books for him too. He is still too small for these but he already loves them and wants to rip them apart...lol

I bought a few storybooks for him too. Although, I haven't read them on my own too (they are just a few pages long with a couple of sentences on each of them...lol). They were Rs. 50 each and the stall had a lot of stories. It took me 20 minutes to decide on the two books that I bought (what a productivity legend).

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One of the busiest stalls was from Geeta Press, they had a lot of spiritual and old Hindu scriptures. I bought a few Bhagavad Gita, and gifted one each to my mom and my sister.

They also sell some tiny books and I couldn't resist taking them with me.

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You would just want to stop at every stall and see what they have in store. As the theme was multicultural India, there were so many bookstores in regional languages promoting every part of the country.

Foreign Pavillion

Hall no. 4 was dubbed as the foreign pavilion as it hosted several guest countries like UAE, Austria, Italy, Iran, Turkey, Russia etc. Each of them had their exhibits that showcased their culture and books.

The first one I saw was none other than from the Republic of Türkiye, organised by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

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I had the pleasure of greeting the Turkish guy with Merhaba. It reminded me of my Turkish friends @incublus and @bemier 🖤. I took a look at the books on the shelf. Sadly, all of them were just for exhibition and not for sale or I would have bought one!

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But at least you could sit and read the books if you knew the language which I still don't.

There were other foreign exhibitions, each one had a few chairs or a sofa to sit and read books or just talk about the culture with the foreign delegations.

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It was a lot of walking, looking at books, reading, browsing, observing people and buying books. I had a ton of fun and that was worth it. Some live TV events were going on with authors speaking on their works. I didn't have the time to just sit down and listen to all of them.

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On the outside of the building was a big food court with multiple food stalls covering so many fast foods, snacks and drinks. It was a hot day, especially in the afternoon so it would have been much better if they had arranged it inside as well.

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It was a good experience, a very well-organised event with so many fun activities for children and kids, there was an amphitheatre used for cultural programs and events that were organised in the evenings during the book fair.

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But in the afternoon, the Amphitheatre's stage was a perfect resting place for some dogs.

I would love to end this post with the quote that someone wrote and stuck it to the message board. It reads "When everything was pulling me down, only books were there to push me up. Keep feeling blessed"