The Book Fair Chronicles

Calcutta. The word holds a magic charm for me.. permeating my senses, brings on a sense of belonging, identity and a pride which has nothing to do with the less-than-perfect state of the city and everything to do with it’s sheer uniqueness. Unparalleled joy of homecoming draws me here every year from my classes, lab chores and teaching duties halfway round the globe. Thanks to my best friend from school who’s decided to tie the knot on the globally auspicious occasion of Valentine’s Day, this year, I am home in a perfect time of the year. Time for the Calcutta International Book Fair.

Books form the décor of many a well manicured room. Not in a Bengali household, though. Those volumes would most likely be tattered and beaten from rigorous readings. Bengalis love to read anything from newspapers to magnum opuses, that one would take a look at, and run for his life. Anything that provides ground for a stimulating discussion over a hot cup of tea and cigarettes is fair game. Any topic that is interesting enough to talk about takes the center stage, no matter how obscure it is. Naturally, books are important to the Bengali man, who might not invest his money wisely in the money market, but will have very definite and obstinate positions on every issue, writer and politician under the Sun. The Calcutta International Book Fair is in a sort, an ode to this streak of the Bengalis. Organized by the Book Seller’s and Publisher’s Guild, this fair, lovingly called “Boi-mela” (Boi –Book, Mela- Fair) draws the largest turnouts amongst fairs in the city. Its identity is somehow fused into the city, and the average Bengali is not only enthusiastic about the Boi-Mela, but pretty emotional about it too. Not only the fair hosts stalls and shops from over a thousand different publishing houses from all over the world, but also forms an essentially unique meeting ground of culture, literature, politics and philosophy. It is this ambience of the Boi-Mela, this display of many languages and cultures congealed into one, and crosstalk between a range of different people, which is irresistible.

A stroll through the mela brought back memories as fresh as ever, like the few years stretched in between had just vanished into oblivion. I could see myself in the girl in a pinafore, who went tugging at her father’s sleeves for the book of fairy tales or, the third grader missing a front tooth, pulling her mom towards school stories by Enid Blyton, the teen with a funky hair-do who flipped through pages of Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew with an almost bored look, the college goer in ragged jeans and a kurti with a backpack on her shoulders, absorbed in the blurb of the recent Marquez novel, or the student who sang a popular local band number as she sat surrounded by her friends, one of whom strummed the strings of his guitar. Moments stretched over years and years flicked through my eyes like a fast kaleidoscope, as I stood rooted in front of the Penguin publisher’s stall, reliving my connection with the fair.


My reverie was shortly interrupted by a bearded man with shabby clothes, wearing a pair of ragged chappals and sporting a jhola, a bag sewn of jute and coarse cotton, on his shoulders. In his hands were a bunch of thin paperbacks, bearing according to him, the finest prose and poetry churned out of modern Bengali literature. A preliminary look convinced me of quite the contrary however, and dodging him with a perfunctory “Maap korben, beshi poisha nei ekhon hatey” (Pardon me, but I don’t have much cash on me) I walked towards the little magazine stalls nearby. Dedicated to the less known publishers, this area generally houses stalls displaying works by emerging writers and often, is a source of brilliant and fresh pieces of writing. A lengthy foraging through the front desks of stands ensued and at the end of the hour and a half, I was able to pick out a few really good magazines and books.

Who could resist the wafting smell of fresh coffee at 2pm in the afternoon after a lengthy day trudging through the dusty lanes of the fair packed with bookstalls? And purely by luck I happened to meet one of my oldest friends in front of the tiny coffee stall, a bibliophile like me, sipping his coffee after a similar shelf-rummaging day. A little span of insanity followed which included “oh my God!”s and “Look at you!”s aplenty. (Isn’t that natural after a span of seven years?) Well, two is a company, so we set out together on our further exploration of the fair. That visiting the bigger publishers can wait, was decided upon mutual consent, for the real fun generally comes from finding out obscure stalls with the most eccentric and sometimes interesting collections of everything from novels to essays, from dramas to poetry, and of course children’s stories. The time was enjoyable because of its sheer simplicity, and languidness. We even managed to get our books signed by their authors of considerable fame, who were roaming around the fair as carefree as the rest, and were none too busy to talk with people recognizing them after every two steps. By the time we reached the enclosed area housing noted publishers and bookshops’ stalls, the crowd had reached its peak and people were lined up in long queues at the gates of every stall, waiting their turn. We decided to save this part for another day and walked by to the artisans’ arena nearby.

Set around an open air arena, the stalls exhibited works of local art college students as well as tribal painters, the Potuas. From times immemorial, these village artisans have relayed folklores and fables through the means of their paintings (Pawt) and songs. Their paintings are tales of old times, sometimes religious texts, painted on fabric and paper in a dazzling array of colors in a distinct style. If you buy one, you get to listen to the accompanying songs for free! But somewhere deep down there is a sorrow in their art, which is definitely an endangered form in the present times, where flashier sources of entertainment are near at hand. A ten foot long scroll, which is sometimes the product of a month of hard toiling, sells for a thousand rupees, a meager twenty dollars or slightly more. According to a Potua whom I was talked to,( Who has a family of four to support) money for a large part of their whole years sustenance comes from his earnings at the Calcutta Book Fair. He flashed me a huge grin when I promised to return the next day with a little bit of money to buy a Pawt from him. Apart from the potuas , students of the Government Art college had out up stalls everywhere, and they sat painting their next portrait or scenery , conversing briskly with prospective customers, and no dealing was complete with a fair bit of bargaining from both ends. Sculptures and seamstresses sat with their merchandise calling out to the general public. The whole area was ablaze with enthusiasm and spirit of art. In the center sat the huge open air arena housing plays, discussions, and music performances one after the other.

After a brief rest, we walked towards the theme pavilion of the guest countries of this year, Scotland and USA. Every year the guild invites two countries to be the theme and guest countries for the fair, inviting some of the eminent littérateurs of both to the fair. While the Scottish pavilion displayed books by numerous Scottish writers, the US pavilion eluded us again, courtesy a huge queue of waiting men and women. The scene quite reminded me of the US embassies here.

The gates of the fair closed at 8 pm as we trudged across the dusty path to the main street. To control the throngs of people, the Calcutta Police had pulled out all their stops and were doing all they could, to control a crowd of almost a lakh. However, how we managed to get on a bus after a miles walk, and being shooed off every four steps by a police sergeant (“move on faster!”) is a separate story and can’t be done justice here. What matters is that I kept on going back to the fair again and again for that span of ten days, and ended up buying such numbers of books that half of them had to be left home due to measly luggage restrictions by airlines. (Damn you!) I vividly remember the last day in the fair when I turned back from its gates and amidst the deafening sound of the theme song “Dakche boi” (The book beckons) bade a silent goodbye to the fair whose spirit I bear within, whose rhythm I still feel as I sit writing about it six thousand miles far from it all. “Adieu, Boi-Mela.”

There are some evenings when loneliness seeps down from the walls, from the top of the shelves, rolling through your floors like a blanket of fog..

today is one such day. Melancholy. Dully snowy. Windy. Bleak.

as I hear the clock ticking and desperately seek respite in mechanical clicks, the noxious fumes of loneliness ensnare my senses..

Has everything joyful gone to sleep?

Musings

To whom is one answerable? To the larger world, or mostly, to himself/herself??
Which is more important? Being able to look into one's own eyes in the mirror or to others faces throughout the day? What is then integrity after all? Is keeping up a huge facade in front of the society more vital than robbing a relation of it's essence?

All these questions float around unanswered.. In my mind and life I have answered them already but the contexts keep on coming back. There is no end to this, nor any redemption, or catharsis.

And I witness a magnanimous farce once again, only this time the scene drops at a later time, by which time will have made puppets out of everyone.