For the 29th year in a row, Hyderabad Book Fair is putting up a brave show to make things happen in Hyderabad for book-lovers. The curtains were down on the 27th December but the question most readers, writers and publishers are asking is – has it done anything different over the years that can arrest the decline of the quality of book fair in general and the overall footfalls of the visitors to the exhibition which houses over 370 stalls this time.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions, so goes a proverb. Likewise, the road to Hyderabad Book Fair has always been paved with grandest of intentions. But this time, the fair fails to deliver a quality fare in both range of publishers and events to celebrate things book-related. Here’s an analysis of why this year’s Book Fair is a big flop show, yet again.
[dropcap]1[/dropcap] Over the years, the dwindling foot falls in the Hyd Book Fairs seem to suggest people in Hyderabad do not read and don’t buy books. But the reality is, there is an upsurge in book-buying as evidenced by the daily deliveries of Flipkart and Amazon in the twin cities of Hyd which has gone up to an average of 300 per day. Older book shops in Hyderabad (like AA Hussains) have closed down, but some are still surviving (Akshara) while others are expanding (like Walden). Look around, you will find many new books set up by enthusiastic entrepreneurs who want to promote books in areas like Gachibowli, Kukatpally etc. There are more lending libraries in Hyderabad than before and these include some national chains as the new generation of IT/BFSI book-loves are voracious for new fiction and non-fiction . Then why the Book Fair struggles to get crowds? Simply lack of imagination and focus. The timings of the book fair on week days are from 2-8.30 pm and on weekends from 12-8.30 pm. The entry is free for students of schools and colleges but which school is going to send kids at 2 pm to be back in school by 3.30 pm? Also, the schools are more focused on ferrying the kids for profit and not many of them are altruistic in arranging free rides to the Book Fair. Only a few school and college managements are keen to add to the library collection. This is one of recurring patterns for Hyd Book Fair where the organisers are clueless in attracting school kids/college students while the timings are unfriendly. For a working professional too, the stalls close promptly between 8.30 pm – 9pm which is a travesty because by the time they reach the venue itself it is around 7.30 pm, so where is the time to stroll 300 plus stalls? At a time when malls are open till 10 pm, the book fair maintains its closure well before that time.
[dropcap]2[/dropcap] Unlike in other Metros like New Delhi and Kolkata, Hyderabad has an ever-expanding radius which made the Book Fair Society oscillate between one venue to another over the years. The first-ever Hyd Book Fair was held in Chikkadpally at City Central Library on the balcony of the library premises with wild excitement experienced by the book-lovers of that era. At that time, the city’s growth limits stopped Mehdipatnam and even Film Nagar and Madhapur were unheard of, forget Gachibowli and Tollychowki. Ever since the fair in the first few years, the fulcrum kept expanding from Chikkadpally to Basheerbagh (Nizam College Grounds). The Nizam College grounds hosted Book Fair for a number of years before it shifted to Necklace Road in the ‘90s and occasionally shifted back to the college grounds and to the recent NTR Stadium. This year’s venue NTR stadium has the best parking space and is equidistant to most city-dwellers but there were no efforts to lure people from outer suburbs to the Fair. There should have been more buses and special buses to ply into the Book Fair from places like Secunderabad, Gachibowli and RC Puram to organise visits to NTR Stadium.
[dropcap]3[/dropcap] The choice of sponsors continues to be a Hobson’s choice for the fair committee. A motley of old-fashioned bunch of members, the objectives of the committee itself suggest they are clueless on what are new trends in publishing or who can be a better sponsor who can symbolically enhance the reach of the Fair? It beats imagination, why the sponsors continue to struggle with insignificant names like a water purifier or a beverage player? What stops the organisers from seeking someone like Flipkart or Amazon or a leading educational institution? Or, how about taking a player like Hyderabad Metro Rail to take an event like Hyd Book Fair to build awareness about its brand – which will soon see lots of action?
[dropcap]4[/dropcap] The choice of the stalls is anachronistic and fails to interest genuine book-lovers. Out of the 370 stalls, almost many of them are repeaters. Each stall is priced at Rs.20,000 rent with the bigger participants opting for three or four stalls combined as one shop. Shockingly, this time as has been happening over the past few years, there are over 25 stalls of second-book bookshops and resellers.Besides, there are Many who are “paper stationery” resellers (ie. they procure books for the purpose of exhibition and redistribute them after the sale, without a registered presence anywhere). This year, a leading distributor alerted the organisers about one of the participant who was selling pirated copies of the blockbuster book “Sachin Tendulkar” at Rs.400/- against a listed price of Rs.699/-. How can a Book Fair have a participant sell pirated copies? If there are good collections in old book stalls, book lovers do not mind them – but giving mass entry to these kind of stalls is definitely a dampener to the overall quality of the book fair. Amongst international quality publishers, only two players Harper Collins and Simon & Schuster have agreed to participate in this year’s fair. We all know what happens to them next year, they never come back.
[dropcap]5[/dropcap] Another sad commentary is the balkanisation of the book fair for the second year in a row. Last year, it made full sense to celebrate the Telangana culture and traditions. But for the second year in a row, the theme of the Book Fair has been balkanised by speakers who celebrate Prof. Jai Shankar’s contribution to Telugu culture like Chukka Ramaiah and others including several ministers. If Hyderabad is cosmopolitan and book-culture is rampant, where is the need to keep idolising these spent force icons who keep eulogising the limited past and link it back to Telangana. Hyderabad Book Fair is not about Telangana. A Delhi Book Fair or a Kolkata Book Fair do not desecrate the themes of the book fair to just local issues and identity politics – they talk about contemporary themes like e-books, new writers, new works of fiction and non-fiction, publishing trends, children’s books etc. The only good theme in the book fair has been the storytelling sessions by Deepa Kiran – a gifted story-teller who is breaking new ground with innovative presentations. If the organisers had been innovative, we could have seen book releases by many prominent writers or used film-celebrities at the book fair which would have generated eyeballs and attention. For example, Ram Gopal Varma’s latest autobiography released by Rupa publishing a few weeks back or the latest book on Salman Khan – they would have got timed with the Fair. In the whole ten days, not one impressive speaker spoke with relevance and perspectives on matters close to a book-lover’s heart. Thankfully, the time-filling tactics of the organisers spared us those sessions of ventriloquism and mimicry which we were used to in the past. What is needed is a celebration of themes about Telugu literature, other vernacular literature and talk about issues that book-lovers like to discuss not what the politicians wax eloquent on.
[dropcap]6[/dropcap] Arrangements for increasing the spend or making the layout attractive continue to go abegging. In the entire fair, you will find hardly five sellers who use EDC machines. For elders who like a resting place, rows and rows of stalls stare at them but not one place to sit except where the discussions take place. Other World Fairs give buggy cart service and push-cart facilities to pile up your purchase orders without worry. Whereas, here we keep lamenting why genuine book-lovers are not thronging the Book Fair while doing everything to keep them disengaged. There is neither a good use of digital technology (to create buzz in the fair) nor innovative marketing to garner visitors.
In short, Hyderabad Book Fair has just been a good idea – whose time has not yet come because of lazy thinking and lack of innovation. Hope the city sees a semblance of a world-class Book Fair atleast in the 30th edition next year. To be fair, the number of stalls has gone up but that doesn’t reflect on the quality of the stalls – the Telugu book shops have mushroomed but there has been a dramatic decline in Hindi/English/Subject knowledge books and the enthusiasm of renowned publishers to partake in Hyd book fair. Until then, the search for good books continue for Hyderabadis.
