Last phase of 'Tomar Amar Boi Mela' underway

KOLKATA: The Publishers and Booksellers Guild, organizers of the International Kolkata Book Fair, held the last phase of 'Tomar Aamar Boi Mela' at FD Block in Salt Lake on Friday.

The book fair will continue till July 17.

This was supposed to be the last phase of the initiative, however, the Guild is thinking of extending it to another locality called Urbana at EM Bypass. The dates are yet to be fixed.

The organization had started organizing small-scale book fairs at community halls of various housing complexes in the city to raise awareness of Bengali books and at the same time take the task to connect readers to the authors.

"This initiative by The Publishers and Booksellers Guild was very well received by the people. Tomar Aamar Boimela's approach to the public was to raise awareness and connect with Bengali readers, old and young. We are very happy that this was a success and look forward to introducing more such endeavours to the people," the Guild's Secretary Tridib Kumar Chattopadhyay said.

The inauguration of the first event took place at the community centre of Regent Park Government Housing Estate on June 25. The second fair took place from July 1 to 3 at the Utsav-Utsarg apartment in Santoshpur.

Since the previous two fairs took place in complexes, the organisers are finding the Salt Lake one a bit unique as it involves residents of an entire block as well as nearby blocks.

The organisers are expecting at least 800-1000 people to visit the community centre, which has books from at least 35 publishers laid out on tables side by side.

"The concept is to bring the books closer to the reader," one of the organisers said.

A young reader, who had come to the book fair with her mother said that even though she tends to buy books online. This kind of initiative is necessary.

"We can have a nice evening in the company of books," said the reader, who is pursuing Engineering.