My Visit to the Book Fair

My Visit to the Book Fair

P. RAGAVI

I MA English
Paper: European Fiction and Drama

I was returning from my native place after the long weekend for the Pongal holidays. Already I was missing my home and all of a sudden my friend Sara messaged me that those who are assigned to Rufus sir for European Fiction have to visit the book fair held at Nandanam YMCA Ground and write an essay on that. Actually I was returning on January 20 and unfortunately the book fair was about to close on January 21. I was too tired because of 12 hours travel in train but I had decided to go to the book fair on January 20 itself. 

Since I was quite new to Chennai, I didn’t even know how to go to Nandanam. So I asked my friends for the bus route, but my sweet friends were ready to accompany me to the book fair. But I should also confess that, I was not in the mood to visit the book fair on that day. But I had no other options left. 

It was the very first time I was going for a book fair so I was equally excited too. And to say the journey with my friends to the book fair was just awesome. They never let me feel tired. There were many discussions between us about how to reach the YMCA ground. Finally we came to a conclusion and then we took the local train till St Thomas Mount and then we took the Chennai metro rail to Nandanam. There was a rule in my hostel that every student should come back to the hostel by 8 PM. So I was in that tension also whether I would be able to return to the hostel on time.

Finally we got down at Nandanam and enquired for the YMCA ground. And we were directed to walk for another 10 minutes in order to reach the destination. By that time everyone felt very tired and exhausted. But we kept on walking, and at last reached the book fair. After seeing the people over there carrying many books with them I was so much thrilled to get into the fair soon. And when we had reached the entrance I was amazed to look at such a big book fair for the first time. May be this book fair is not that much big but for me it was the first book fair I have visited and so it was big for me. There were totally 8 entrances and I like a kid was choosing by which entrance I have to get in. And on that day we din’t have enough money with us as it was not a pre-planned one. But for our luck the entrance fee is free for students so we all had to just show our ID cards to enter into the venue of the book fair. I was literally shocked after entering in. There were totally 538 book shops over there. It was the 43^rd Chennai book fair. Actually speaking, one day is really not enough for us to go through almost all the shops.

We entered the fair through the 8^th entrance. My friends and I went in different directions so that we can cover at least half of it. All kind of books were available there from Tamil to English and also many combo offers. We can find people of all age groups there. Words cannot explain the variety of books that I found there. It was such a treat to my eyes to see all those books gathered in one place. I had forgotten all my tiredness and started exploring the place. My friend was interested in Tamil books and so he took me to the Tamil book shop. There I found books like Ponniyin Selvan and many other interesting novels. He was searching for some book and I went on seeing all the books over there. Then he called me to show the book he found. It was the book Veppam written by Poomani. We found this book fascinating because the cover page of the book was Dhanush’s picture from the movie Asuran. It was one of the movies I loved watching in recent times. Actually the movie was based on that novel Veppam. My friend was interested in buying that book because he wanted to know the difference between the book and the movie. He wanted me to buy that book for him and even I was ready to buy that book for him. The book costs 100 rupees but I had only a 500 rupee note. I gave that to the shopkeeper but he said that he had no change with him. At last my friend only paid for the book and bought it himself and I was little disappointed that I couldn’t buy that for him.

I was searching for the book, The Return of the Native written by Thomas Hardy. I found lot of English story books in those shops. All the books were arranged in an attractive way to attract children. All those books were so colourful. Even I felt like a child when I turned through the pages of all those books. The books reminded me of my childhood bed-time stories narrated by my mother. As I have narrated earlier, I had just returned from my home, and so I suddenly started missing my mom. But to my surprise my mom called me at that time. I felt like even she was missing me that’s why she called when I thought of her. After speaking with my mom for sometime I again resumed my search for the book. I almost saw all my syllabus books over there but I couldn’t find the book I was searching for. I was desperately in need of that book because I had to do my seminar on that book. Then my friend took me to the other entrance. There we found audio lessons going on, in one shop. A lot of people were eagerly waiting there to hear the audio lessons one by one. Even I wanted to listen to the audios, but there was already a long queue over there and moreover we didn’t have that much time left on us. So we moved from there to the next store.

Then we were supposed to the see the stall named Arulmigu Amman Pathipagam. This shop contains all kind of devotional books. They have made it in a way that it looked yellowish so that we can get the devotional feel. As I was interested in Hindu mythology I spent some time there and turned down some books. Then we went into a shop named Baskar book House. Here I found all the books of my favourite Harry Potter series. I was so overwhelmed to see all those books because I watched those movies for more than 10 times. Harry Potter series was my all time favourite. Though I watched them as movies I always wanted to read those books. Even though I couldn’t buy all those books I was very much happy by seeing the series of books together.

Another friend of mine came with the camera so he went on taking pictures about what is going around him. I was there in most of his pictures because I was posing for him deliberately. But he was reluctant in taking photos of mine as he was about to take only the pictures of book fair. I even forced him to take a video of me while I’m reading the books. I was very happy on that day. One major reason for it was the book fair and another was that, I was accompanied by my loved ones. I was torturing my friends to find out the book for me. After all the fun, I once again resumed my search.

Next we entered the shop named Sri Vidhya Book Centre. After lot of searching I came across some interesting books written by Tamil writer Jeyamohan. My childhood friend was an immense lover of his books. Whenever we had a chance to meet she will definitely speak about him. She told me that his short stories will be very interesting. I reminded about all this and I took a book and started reading a short story named ‘Chithiyin Diary’. It was really touching. My heart became burdened after reading that. The shop had a good collection of his books and so I bought 2 books to present to my friend as a surprise. She would be very happy if I present her his book. And I was very glad to buy that book for her.

Though we were tired after walking around the book fair we didn’t stop exploring the shops because we had only that day to look around the book fair. Then my friend compelled me to enter Eureka Books. Actually I had no interest of going inside that shop. But somehow I went in for the sake of my friend. But after sometime I found an interesting book written by the famous psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. As a literature student I always had an interest on him. It was his famous book titled, Interpretation of Dreams. There was also a Tamil translation of this same book. It was written on that book that it was one among the world changing books. Then only I understood his importance as a writer. My friend bought that book and I have decided to snatch that from him whenever I need that.

I know I couldn’t enter into all those 538 shops. But I think I almost entered 25 shops. Then we moved to 1^st entrance. There we found a separate shop for Amazon devices. The shopkeepers were explaining the functions of a kindle device. When I was doing my UG my ma’am told about this kindle device and from that time itself I developed a wish to get a kindle for myself so that I can read many books.It was a first time I am seeing a kindle. I eagerly heard how it works.It was too costly for me to buy so I left it anyway. But I always had a crush on this amazon device.

As a post graduate student of English literature all I wanted now was to clear NET exam. My professors in UG had always advised me to get an Upkar book for my preparation. And also I found that book useful because I have taken that book from my library for many quiz competitions. While roaming around I found a shop named Upkar Prakashan. There I found all the books of their edition. I went through all the books which I found very useful. At last I bought that book for my preparation.

The next shop that I went to, was JCS Arts and Crafts. The shop reminded me of my school days where I used to have arts and crafts class. The shop was very fascinating to see and there were many handmade items available. Many were showing interests in buying those stuffs. My friend took many photos of that shop as it was very colourful. I took a book and went through some of the pages and I was about to buy the book but my friends stopped me. I also understood in the meantime that I would not read that book after I was back home. For time being my friends rushed me through the rest of the shops.

It was already late for me to start to the hostel. I was also exhausted as I felt very thirsty. There was a juice shop inside. We went over there and inquired the cost of the juice and we were very much disappointed as we could not afford that much. With slight sadness we continued our walking. At that time we reached 3^rd entrance. Like the Harry Potter series we found another shop containing Goosebumps books. I have watched these movies also. In those movies I found the character Slappy very interesting and there I found a separate book named Slappy. Actually that is a villainous character but we friends made fun out of it.

Then we moved to 2^nd entrance. The very first shop there was Books for Children. I went in to buy some books for my sister’s son. There were lot of rhymes books available. As the place is for children everything there was so colourful. Then I saw some drawing books. I bought some of the books over there and felt happy for my sister’s kid. He would feel happy after seeing that. After reading those rhymes I was taken back to my school memories. My mom used to tell me that I would recite all those rhymes I have studied in school before entering the home. The book reminded me of that incident and I began to laugh.

My friends asked me why I was laughing unnecessarily after reading the rhymes. I explained the incident and even they started to laugh afterwards. Then we moved on to the next section. At that time I saw the stall named Indian Abacus. Though we have no connection with mathematics we simply entered the shop. The main reason for choosing English as a major was for escaping from mathematics. We were discussing about that within ourselves and moved on to the next shop.

As I had mentioned earlier we were very thirsty. So I decided to buy a water bottle how much ever it costs. I opened my bag to take the purse but I found the purse missing. I couldn’t think about anything for a moment. I was shocked and told that to my friends immediately. They went in search of my purse. I was not in my senses I was standing there as a statue. I felt very bad. I have decided that we could not find the purse as the place was very much crowded. Tears began rolling down my cheeks.

Actually I had left the purse in the stall where I bought the rhymes book. My friends found it out, and promptly came to me with the purse. Only after that I became normal. They scolded me for my carelessness. I apologised to them and everyone then came back to the former happy mood. Then my friend bought a water bottle and gave it to me. The water tastes as if it was a heavenly drink. If at all I hadn’t searched for my purse to buy water bottle I would have lost my purse. I thanked god and moved on.

I was urging my friends to come out of the book fair as it was already late for me to get back to hostel. One of my friends went alone in search of a book. We were continuously calling him but the phone was not reachable. Our phone was not having signal at all. We waited over there for some minutes but he didn’t return. My friends again went to another stall and they took me also with them. I was in extreme fear because I didn’t inform my warden about my visit to the book fair. She would definitely ask questions if I enter the hostel after the curfew time but my friends were very lethargic.

My friend who went alone was also continuously trying to call us but he couldn’t reach.  He went in search of us and we went in search of him. I was much tensed because it was getting too late for me. Even my friend became tired after searching us and he came out of the book fair through 1^st entrance. We roamed here and there and finally came to the 8^th entrance through which we entered. I and my friends were making phone calls to him. We came out and was standing there hoping him to come there. At first we have discussed to come out of the same entrance we entered. I totally forgot that but he somehow remembered that and reached the place where we were standing.

I felt relieved by his arrival because somehow I had a hope that I would reach the hostel on time. We were about to leave but at that time we saw the Keeladi exhibition over there. Each one of us was very eager to get in and see the things displayed over there. We totally forgot that it was already very late and eagerly entered the exhibition. They had displayed many antique items that were found during the research. Everything over there was a proof to show how civilized we were during the old ages. There were many portraits showing our culture. At one corner of the exhibition they were showing the virtual reality videos but there was a huge queue standing there and if we go and stand there it will be too late for me to enter into the hostel. If at all I go and stand there my warden would never let me inside the hostel. We came out of the exhibition and we were all so hungry after seeing the food stalls. We thought of eating something and moved towards the stall.

My friends asked me to buy something for them. The whole day was too hot so I bought ice-creams for all of them. On that day even the simple cones seems very tastier to us as everything depends on our mind-set. At last we all bought hot and spicy corn and started to move towards the exit. We came out and one of my friends boarded the bus there itself. Then we again started walking. As we could not afford metro we moved towards Saidapet railway station. It was actually far away we almost walked for another 20 minutes to reach the station. After reaching the station I was preparing myself to convince my warden over the phone about my visit to the book fair. Finally I made a call to warden and to my luck the senior warden was not present there on that day. So another warden easily granted the permission to arrive late to the hostel. I became very happy after hearing this and boarded the train towards Tambaram happily. On the whole it was a very great experience for me. The whole day went on well and my first visit to the book fair was filled with joy.