It’s 5 am, and I am curled up on the couch reading an Arthur Conan Doyle paperback. I have picked up the author after at least 25 years, and it would have taken me far longer had I not stumbled upon the classic at the World Book Fair.
In my college days, book fairs in my hometown were something I would wait for with bated breath. Each room of the humble government school where it was held, despite its limited collection, meant more to me than any state-of-the-art hall at Pragati Maidan or a chain bookstore anywhere in the world. It was enough.
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Over a decade ago, I finally got the chance to visit the World Book Fair in Delhi, held at the iconic Hall of Nations at that time, and was blown away by the endless books on offer. But over the years, with everything online taking over most aspects of my life, book fairs sort of fell off the priority list.
Don’t get me wrong, I was excited each time they were announced. But a general lack of willingness to get out of bed on a February morning always took over and I would console myself afterwards with, “online toh mil hi jaata hai na”.
Over the last couple of years, I have built a good rapport with a bookstore owner who very helpfully suggests titles. So that takes care of the personalised experience the online book buying lacked.
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But last year, I went to the book fair with my mother, and as we came back, with our arms so full with our day’s haul that we had to stop every few steps to catch our breath, I realised one thing that I had been missing in life all these years: Letting a book find you, on its own.
It started with my mother stopping at a Russian pavilion out of curiosity and asking, “Do you have any Hindi titles?” Before I could say, “Mummy, yahaan kahaan…” the stall assistant got her The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoevsky) and Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy), all ably translated into her mother tongue. She read the first few pages and gleefully bought them all. What I did not see coming was that this was just a start.
By the end, she had bought Hindi translations of the greatest works of Gorky, Chekhov, and Gogol, to name a few. We came back with 34 books, and writers she had not even heard of before continued to enrich her life in the year that followed.
This time, with the February air getting slightly nippy after a warm end to January, she went, “Rehne dein? Online mil toh jaati hai…(Shall we let it be? We’ll get it online anyway….)” But after a couple of days, and following an impassioned lecture from me, off we went to the book fair to see what gems were going to find us next.
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Unlike last time, when my mom’s relentless shopping allowed me the room to get only one book for myself, this time, we went better prepared — carrying a backpack, a shoulder bag, a tote bag, and two “emergency bags”, just in case.
It was the translation of a Hungarian novel, a Sartre play, and (an almost) complete collection of Kabir, Manto and Rahul Sankrityayan for mom this time. And as she sat in the Turkey Pavillion, trying to finish the sole Turkish-to-Hindi translation that was “only for display, not for sale” in one sitting, I picked up a few Ruskin Bonds, an Ann Patchett, a Mitch Albom, a host of others to be gifted to loved ones, and of course, the yellow Sherlock Holmes paperback. None of these were on my wishlist; none were suggested by my go-to bookstore. Amid the sea of countless books, and countless people, so many that it would blur your vision out, these stretched their hands out to me and I grabbed them with all that I have.
Forget How I Met Your Mother. Let me tell you how I met Sir Arthur Conan Doyle after 25-odd years. Trust me, it would make for a fascinating read.
deepika.singh@expressindia.com
