I MA English
European Fiction and Drama
My New Experience
20/1/2020
my journey at 2:30 pm reminds me of the day, which is exactly one year before
where I had to travel all the way to YMCA ground on a sunny day fully exhausted
by the tiring journey and bright sunrays just to see the shut doors, empty
grounds and closed food stalls. I was completely shocked and came back home with
a disappointed long face.
This was
not the end because the joy of visiting a book fair was always blooming inside
me.
This
summer my 2nd Book Fair visit was completely a different experience to be
cherished. This was totally a different experience because in a book fair we
usually run behind bundles and bundles of books but this time it was necessary
to have keen eye on the expressions and gestures of people of different age
groups.
I was
thrilled to see not only at the small children fighting with their mom and dad
for comic books but also at the old grandpa’s and mom’s having deep analysis of
the philosophical books.
The moment my foot stepped in, I stood in awe looking at the grand place which is divided into many compartments and piled with books of different genre, authors and languages. We took little steps and moved very slowly rolling our heads all around the place with amazement.
It was so grand that we couldn’t even locate where we were
standing and heading forward. Sometimes we moved in circles ending up in the
same place and sometimes we were so much stuck with some books that we couldn’t
even explore some sections.
My amazement began just when my eyes got stuck with
something that I have never seen before. Guess what? It was a mini robot. Just like
me I saw a man sitting in front of the robot and gazing it for a very long
time.
I was happy to see a copy of me giving the same expressions
just like how I did. This mini robot had a combination of blue and white colour.
For quite a while I was fixed with the thoughts of the robot
whether it would talk, move and so on. Seeing me lost in thoughts my friends
bought me back to reality and dragged me into the first store. It was a small
store but had huge books in Tamil language.
I was amazed to see my friends having deep interest in
regional language books and very familiar with many authors whom I had no clue
at all. Seeing all this I felt so bad and left out because being bought up in
Mumbai, I had too little knowledge about Tamil authors and I was also not that
good at reading Tamil.
Among all these unknown facts one interesting thing that I
too knew was the author Imayam who was the father of our own department student.
I was really happy when people where having a look at the Pethavan book by
Imayam.
The whole book stall was really crowded with people and
looking all around I was able see many old age people with different facial expressions
while reading over. Another thing to be noted was that the old age people where
exceeding the youngsters and they were more active and enthusiastic in reading
and buying books.
Many grandpa’s hands were flooded with books. While
exploring I found out that some of the famous actors were also famous authors. Yea,
another sweet shock was to see Mammootty in books. I had a glance at his book
and moved into my favorite English book stores.
The English book stores
were filled group of boys. These boys were holding bundles of novels. Their selection
of books equally matched the notions of a Literature student because among all
the fantasy books they were holding on some interesting novels like Pride and
prejudice, A Tale of two cities etc.
Another incident that appealed my sight was the kid’s
attitude toward books. It was always a joy to look at kids their laughter,
smile, anger, obstinacy etc.
There was a little kid who wanted to buy some book, so she
was keen in selecting books like Wonder Animals, Tenali Raman, Akbar and Birbal
and finally after a long search came to conclusion to buy The Wizard’s Wand (
The Ninth adventure in the kingdom of fantasy ). The book was filled with
pictures and some dialogues. It was so colourful that the kid really wanted to
have it for herself. She literally fought with her mom but even after having a
heated argument the mom refused to buy it seeing its price. I really felt bad
for the kid, who left the place with a
long face and little tear drops hanging in the edges of her eyes. They moved
the place and very curiously I just turned the back of the book. I too couldn’t
believe my eyes because the amount was really very high. It was 595 rupees and
after seeing the prize I was also much convinced about the mom’s condition.
The next stall was filled with books that were inspiring and
philosophical. While having a look over the books I saw a very small book named
‘The World Best Quotations’. I started to flip the papers of the book and one
short quote that was interesting to me was the quote “A Drop of ink may make a
million think” by Byron. This quote really made me think and was relevant to the
environment of a Book fair because it was just the ink that made millions of
brain think and gather there to hunt for books.
Not just the fictional and philosophical there was also
books related to physics, chemistry, and Mathematics. Having a glance at that
books took me down the memory lane.
Looking back reminds me of the time and hard work that was
put in to achieve something in life. Looking back again is really very scary
now. I know, that was also a phrase of life which was always about storing
facts with no entertainment. I badly wanted to get away from that store so
somehow I managed to sneak out.
Out of the store there was bright flashing yellow light near
me. Yea, it was the media who were running all around with cameras, mike and
lights. There were capturing videos and also interviewing people about their
experience. It was pure fun to hear all their responses. I stood there hearing
different comments and enjoying them.
Suddenly to my shock they just had a turn over and headed
steadily near me. With hearts beating in rapid speed in no time I managed to
get away from that place along with the crowd. That was really a shock, because
never had I given any interviews and I was really tensed to see them marching
towards me. A complete contrast to my character was my friend who accompanied me
to the book fair. She was a girl who had good understanding about a lot of
books and authors. With a steady firm posture she gave her interview in an
engrossing manner. I was totally amazed looking at her level of confidence and
her manner of delivering her ideas.
After hearing the interesting talk we were moving near some
English book stores with DISCOUNT boards
. Oh! What a happy sight to see because until then we came across many books
that were really very costly and not affordable. But this very word discount
bought a huge smile on my face. It was a big stall which was filled with a lot
of books on discount.
There was one interesting lady among that huge crowd who was
questioning the salesman in full swing. Hearing the high pitched voice, I just went
near to hear her conversation. She was actually in search of a book in English
translation but the store only had the Tamil version of it. So the man asked
her to buy the Tamil version of the book but the lady was angry with no cause and
spoke in rude tone, that she has already read the Tamil version of it. Seeing
her I felt that she was very upset deep inside because she couldn’t get that one
book which she longed for.
The book store had some happy and some fluster faces. Each
person in the store had different gestures and emotions and among them I turned
a happy face when I saw a group of boys commenting and appreciating the book
that I was currently reading. It was Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert. The boys were really very curious to know
the plot line and so was I to hear their comments. With much excitement they
got two copies of the same book Madame Bovary.
After looking over all the expressions and attitudes of the
people I started my hunt for books. It was at the 12th grade when I
heard about the book Tess of the D'Urbervilles by
Thomas Hardy.
My mom
was a literature student, so she usually tells me to read some interesting
books and one among them was this book. But I was not really moved to buy one
until my aunt during my last summer vacation started to narrate the story of
this book. This aunt is my mom’s sister and during her youthful days, she used
to steal books from my mom and that’s how she got to read this book of Thomas
Hardy. She read the book long years back but till now she couldn’t get over it.
Her love towards this book moved me also straight to hunt for it. Luckily after
a long hunt, I got the book and that too in a discount (that was really the
best part in it). While flipping the pages of the book always bought the face
of my aunt in front of me who narrated the story passionately with great
insight and expression and finally ended it with a suspense note which yea, I’m
yet to find.
While
roaming, my eyes caught the attention of
some group of kids. They were cheerfully learning something new and that
was new for me too because kids usually don’t have that attitude towards
studies. I spend nearly 10 min with the kids and finally found that they were
trying out new methods of learning. This New Learning method was interesting
because it was double pack of learning plus entertainment. There were also some
tutors to assist them throughout the process. It was really a great initiative
to engage the kids and also make them learn something new.
I
wished that I would have brought along my niece too, who always wants to have fun with
no studies. This would have been the perfect place for her where she can enjoy
and study. With this thought of bringing all my niece for the next Book fair I
moved toward the next store.
It is
always a pleasure to meet class mates around us isn’t it ? and meeting a
professor from our own college was a double pleasure. I was really happy to see
a Tamil department professor on the way, and I heard that she is really an inspiring person and her
articles are very famous. She has a great passion towards Tamil language. On
the very same day in the book fair she was having a deep conversation about Tamil
language to a group of people.
I guess my visit to this book fair was a perfect one because not
only the books but also the Keeladi Excavation Trenches - Models also
astonished me. The models were so attractive and had minute detailing. This
minute detailing caught the attention of many people in the book fair. The
whole place was crowded with people. However I managed to have a look at almost
all the models. I was impressed to see the handwork of the people which was up
to the point.
Lastly
it was the time to fill our tummies. There were so many stalls and having spend
so much time hunting for books and gestures of the people, the very sight of
food made us mouth watering. We tasted different chats which was my personal favourite.
We sat
there nearly for half an hour over the food. Seeing some empty chairs we had
our seats in the public speech area.
Perfectly
seated we had the chance to hearing the speech of one person, who spoke very
proudly of Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam and his visions. It was actually an
inspiring speech which gained the attention and applauses of many people.
We left
the Book Fair by 8.00 pm with great satisfaction holding books in our hands and
memories in our heart.
