Ah, life is so boring. Now that the book fair is over, it seems all the more boring. I didn't go there in the last two days though. In fact, after my last entry, I had chance of visiting the place only once. But the fun I had was unparalleled. Another 11 books, one মিষ্টি পান, one packet of চানাচুর, popularly known as ঘটি গরম, one Metro Dairy Butter Scotch ice cream (I had one last time too), and a hell of a ride back home in (if you can imagine the case) a Volvo bus whose door doesn't close because of the crowd, and the conductor keeps shouting, please move in, "ladies" are going hanging on the foot board. Well, the catastrophe doesn't end there mind you, when amid that crowd, you hear your doting dad's (who himself is being pushed around by the young ones who have not been taught to show any civic respect towards senior citizens) voice, "Mom, please give me your purse and wallet, I will hold them, you stand properly..." Crap, crap, crap, I am 34 mind you, 3 and 4 put together, not the kid he imagines me to be - for God's sake daddy get a grip on yourself, your daughter has visited 10 other countries of the world...she knows how to take care of herself and her things.
Ah, Calcutta, I can understand why my dear Avik-da is so terribly frustrated with you. The chief minister wants to build a giant wheel. I remember the giant wheel of Singapore to be under construction when I visited it. I was so sad that I won't be there on its opening day. Ma'am, I don't want to sound suggestive, but don't you think welcoming tourists without improving on the public transport system would be bit of a disaster? For God's sake there are not even enough taxis or rental cars. How are they supposed to travel around? Buy a car, and sell that off before they leave the city?
Well, I didn't sit down to vent out my frustrations, but remind me to do that once...I am so full of exasperation that I have almost given up. But then today, I sat down to write about the 25 lakh foot falls and the 21 crore INR business that the 38th international Kolkata book fair has been blessed with, and my small contribution towards it.
1. So believe it or not, the first publishers from whom we bought something was Gita Press. We bought a gita with large font size that granny can read properly.
2. Next was Deep Prakashani - from where I had to obey my brother's instruction and get books on Sourav Ganguli, written by Debasish Dutta, published preferably after 2007, and would be better if it had stories of his face off with Grep Chappell (those who don't know about it please read up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chappell-Ganguly_controversy). It seems I had promised my brother to get such books and had forgotten in the previous occasion i.e. when I went to the book fair on the 7th of February - and for that he has been constantly complaining. Trust me, I still don't have any memory of making such strange promises, but thankfully, I could grab two such books for impossible prices (two of them together cost me Rs 80/-) and all hard feelings have now been put to rest.
3. Asia Publishing - I had googled and found out that they publish হেমেন্দ্র কুমার রায় রচনাবলী - got the 1st and the 7th parts, ya you guessed right, যখের ধন and আবার যখের ধন। Had a good mind of buying the full set, it would cost me only Rs 1380/- but then, who will carry so many books, given the state of public transport (trust me we just couldn't find taxis - otherwise job or no job, I still can afford one once in a while).
4. Kabita Pakshik - This was a curious place we had visited last time, and found they are selling classics for extremely low prices. I insisted that we go there once again. Since the entire family has been kind of bowled over after reading ডমরু চরিত - we decided to get লুল্লু - actually লুল্লু turned out to be even better, me and dad had taken couple of days to finish the former, and mom was not too impressed by it, but the latter was read up overnight by mom, dad and me, all three. We also got ভোঁদড় বাহাদুর and আরন্যক।ভোঁদড় বাহাদুর was one more thing I finished overnight. In fact none of us have time to do our regular work (e.g. cooking for mom, share trading for dad and Java lessons for me) - you see, we have so much to read :) Well, about the publisher, good attempt no doubt, but still, the spelling and publishing errors cause a lot of pain.
5. Well, Sahitya Academy - which has been taken over by the government, so they won't give the 15% discount due for my book fair privilege card, as they didn't receive any circular. But then I had to get this work of বুদ্ধদেব বসু - the first volume, having read so much about his flaring intellect, and not being acquainted with his writing, I just couldn't leave the book behind. And then dad insisted I get for him yet another জীবনানন্দ - this time the gentleman's biography by some other Das fellow. Trust me, I just can't understand why on earth my dad is so obsessed with this crazy poet - at any nook and corner of our house you can discover a জীবনানন্দ book. I am not a fan - I do not understand why a person would go and smell the non existent grass on the tram line and be run over by a tram in the process - why God ever created such a person is beyond me - my dad is his disciple in a way, and all I can do is to accept that much. I don't have a poet living in me anymore, the world was able to kill it off long back. I fail to grasp this enigma of a person. In all, we had just curiously stepped in to take a look at the পশ্চিমবঙ্গ stall, and was enlightened to see বাউল গান being played there with Tabla and Harmonium (ideally a বাউল is supposed to play only with his একতারা and some ঘুঙুর kinda thing to keep the rhythm). But then we saw the books and lost a major chunk of our money, sans that 5% extra discount (Rs 26 it amounts too - sigh sigh) :D :D
6. Ya, this one was a surprise even to me - I got a book written on লোকনাথ বাবা from M. C. Sarkar. I mean, I am not a religious person, no. But then, from my very childhood, I have been taught to worship Him (my grandma, i.e. dad's mom was from the Nag family of বারদী , the family who first hosted Him once He came down to the plains of Bengal) - and in my childhood, before that boat accident happened which kind of split off the family and took away my two cousin brothers and my eldest uncle, we used to have লোকনাথের উৎসব in a real big way. Somehow, I felt like reading up on the only God-man I believe in - in the modern day crises of corrupt God-men everywhere, this seemed a must. I don't know the result of reading the book - my faith in Him has not been affected in any way by the book. What I primarily realized was - such books cannot really impact ones faith. We never were a part of any of the business following His worship - my parents have always kept us away from that - in fact I hardly speak about the fact that I belong to a family directly blessed by Him. All we have been taught is to live a good life, then He will take care of the rest. We have tried to be good, despite everything that tried to direct us away. That's all. I strongly believe, He made me read the book, like He has always been with me in all my decisions, without trying to influence.
So another book fair over. Man, do check out this book - http://www.pratikshanbooks.com/booksonart/rabindra_chitravali.html I actually saw this in the Pratikshan stall and was too scared to even browse properly. This is book fair, where they allow you to touch a book worth this much money - and if you have the patience, you can check out the entire book too!
So far as I can see, I won't be leaving my city and going away anytime soon. May be I'd be there for the so many more book fairs to come. But then, this was like reincarnation. A gush of life after 10 long years. Those will be like celebrating an usual birthday.
Ah, Calcutta, I can understand why my dear Avik-da is so terribly frustrated with you. The chief minister wants to build a giant wheel. I remember the giant wheel of Singapore to be under construction when I visited it. I was so sad that I won't be there on its opening day. Ma'am, I don't want to sound suggestive, but don't you think welcoming tourists without improving on the public transport system would be bit of a disaster? For God's sake there are not even enough taxis or rental cars. How are they supposed to travel around? Buy a car, and sell that off before they leave the city?
Well, I didn't sit down to vent out my frustrations, but remind me to do that once...I am so full of exasperation that I have almost given up. But then today, I sat down to write about the 25 lakh foot falls and the 21 crore INR business that the 38th international Kolkata book fair has been blessed with, and my small contribution towards it.
1. So believe it or not, the first publishers from whom we bought something was Gita Press. We bought a gita with large font size that granny can read properly.
2. Next was Deep Prakashani - from where I had to obey my brother's instruction and get books on Sourav Ganguli, written by Debasish Dutta, published preferably after 2007, and would be better if it had stories of his face off with Grep Chappell (those who don't know about it please read up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chappell-Ganguly_controversy). It seems I had promised my brother to get such books and had forgotten in the previous occasion i.e. when I went to the book fair on the 7th of February - and for that he has been constantly complaining. Trust me, I still don't have any memory of making such strange promises, but thankfully, I could grab two such books for impossible prices (two of them together cost me Rs 80/-) and all hard feelings have now been put to rest.
3. Asia Publishing - I had googled and found out that they publish হেমেন্দ্র কুমার রায় রচনাবলী - got the 1st and the 7th parts, ya you guessed right, যখের ধন and আবার যখের ধন। Had a good mind of buying the full set, it would cost me only Rs 1380/- but then, who will carry so many books, given the state of public transport (trust me we just couldn't find taxis - otherwise job or no job, I still can afford one once in a while).
4. Kabita Pakshik - This was a curious place we had visited last time, and found they are selling classics for extremely low prices. I insisted that we go there once again. Since the entire family has been kind of bowled over after reading ডমরু চরিত - we decided to get লুল্লু - actually লুল্লু turned out to be even better, me and dad had taken couple of days to finish the former, and mom was not too impressed by it, but the latter was read up overnight by mom, dad and me, all three. We also got ভোঁদড় বাহাদুর and আরন্যক।ভোঁদড় বাহাদুর was one more thing I finished overnight. In fact none of us have time to do our regular work (e.g. cooking for mom, share trading for dad and Java lessons for me) - you see, we have so much to read :) Well, about the publisher, good attempt no doubt, but still, the spelling and publishing errors cause a lot of pain.
5. Well, Sahitya Academy - which has been taken over by the government, so they won't give the 15% discount due for my book fair privilege card, as they didn't receive any circular. But then I had to get this work of বুদ্ধদেব বসু - the first volume, having read so much about his flaring intellect, and not being acquainted with his writing, I just couldn't leave the book behind. And then dad insisted I get for him yet another জীবনানন্দ - this time the gentleman's biography by some other Das fellow. Trust me, I just can't understand why on earth my dad is so obsessed with this crazy poet - at any nook and corner of our house you can discover a জীবনানন্দ book. I am not a fan - I do not understand why a person would go and smell the non existent grass on the tram line and be run over by a tram in the process - why God ever created such a person is beyond me - my dad is his disciple in a way, and all I can do is to accept that much. I don't have a poet living in me anymore, the world was able to kill it off long back. I fail to grasp this enigma of a person. In all, we had just curiously stepped in to take a look at the পশ্চিমবঙ্গ stall, and was enlightened to see বাউল গান being played there with Tabla and Harmonium (ideally a বাউল is supposed to play only with his একতারা and some ঘুঙুর kinda thing to keep the rhythm). But then we saw the books and lost a major chunk of our money, sans that 5% extra discount (Rs 26 it amounts too - sigh sigh) :D :D
6. Ya, this one was a surprise even to me - I got a book written on লোকনাথ বাবা from M. C. Sarkar. I mean, I am not a religious person, no. But then, from my very childhood, I have been taught to worship Him (my grandma, i.e. dad's mom was from the Nag family of বারদী , the family who first hosted Him once He came down to the plains of Bengal) - and in my childhood, before that boat accident happened which kind of split off the family and took away my two cousin brothers and my eldest uncle, we used to have লোকনাথের উৎসব in a real big way. Somehow, I felt like reading up on the only God-man I believe in - in the modern day crises of corrupt God-men everywhere, this seemed a must. I don't know the result of reading the book - my faith in Him has not been affected in any way by the book. What I primarily realized was - such books cannot really impact ones faith. We never were a part of any of the business following His worship - my parents have always kept us away from that - in fact I hardly speak about the fact that I belong to a family directly blessed by Him. All we have been taught is to live a good life, then He will take care of the rest. We have tried to be good, despite everything that tried to direct us away. That's all. I strongly believe, He made me read the book, like He has always been with me in all my decisions, without trying to influence.
So another book fair over. Man, do check out this book - http://www.pratikshanbooks.com/booksonart/rabindra_chitravali.html I actually saw this in the Pratikshan stall and was too scared to even browse properly. This is book fair, where they allow you to touch a book worth this much money - and if you have the patience, you can check out the entire book too!
So far as I can see, I won't be leaving my city and going away anytime soon. May be I'd be there for the so many more book fairs to come. But then, this was like reincarnation. A gush of life after 10 long years. Those will be like celebrating an usual birthday.
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