To the Book Fair

When I was still in school, we used to go to the book fair every year. However, I was not a big fan of books back then. As a middle schooler, it was mandatory for us to get a book issued from the school library and submit its summary in two weeks time. I do not think that I ever wrote the summary by myself. I would always ask my younger brother to read it and dictate the summary to me. And he was so nice, to read even the most stereotypical girlish fairy tale books I issued.

Then college started and nobody asked me to go to the book fair anymore. I never missed the books there, I only ever missed the vibes and the journey we took each year to reach those large halls packed with books. And so, I randomly asked mom if we can go there this year. I thought that maybe she would deny, and then I will say, "Ok, I was also not very interested in it". But she said yes. And I just gave her a thumbs up.

Before going there, I had a few stereotypes about it. Like it will be packed with those non-fictional books and maybe I can find some self-help ones among those. But the problem was: I did not consider the fact that my earlier memories and hence expectations were built upon the experiences of a child who had never once completed a single book to the end.

It was really such a beautiful experience this time. It had so many books from such diverse domains. And I challenge myself to try and list those domains here: cook-books, fiction, hindi literature, urdu literature, poems, self-help books, mythology, ancient history, vedic books, yoga and meditation books, books on recent history (past 100 years) and freedom movements, books from different countries, computer science, defense, medical, physics, maths, law, aerospace engineering, photography, cinematography and other academic field books, kids books, books focused on illustrations, autobiographies and other books on someone's life.

I saw people buying a lot of books, and compared to them, I think we brought much less. But still it was so much fun. I wandered around those giant halls, until my legs hurt and still we left so much unexplored.

More importantly, It was beautiful to find something where the grass felt greener from when I was a kid. This time around, I finally realized how great it was to witness the meeting between an author and their reader. Two people who have never met and maybe will never meet again, but still share some stories unknown to others around them.

And I could not forget how one of the authors addressed their stage, 'Thanks to the audience, where I could only find smiling faces...', and I looked around. Guess what, I could only see smiling faces too. What a beautiful way to address that audience. I loved it.

I loved how one girl carried a mountain of books to her mom. Even when she knew, that from all those, she might just be able to get the take-home-approval for a few of them. And get the reduced mountain of rejections thrown back at her.

I loved how an old man, had little strength to hold the weight of a voluminous book, but had sheer will power to read it.

I loved how I could find a lot of elderly people, in the kids book section.

I loved how one boy found a book so good that he was reading it, while I had moved on from one book and was deciding what else should I buy. It felt like I find the difference, between when you find a book, you know you are going to binge read in days, vs a book, you know that you might take months to read.

Now, I feel like I have gained a lot of expectations of how I want my next year's book fair trip to be.