Tirupati Book festival: A treat for book lovers
Tirupati: TTD’s SV High School grounds on Prakasam Road in Tirupati witnessed a beehive of activity with the launch of annual book festival. With more than 80 shops in a sprawling ground, located in heart of the city, the 12th edition of Tirupati Book Festival witnessed huge number of visitors even from the first day on Saturday. When one enters the exhibition, the stall of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, which is organising the festival, welcomes them while TTD’s stall to its opposite bids adieu while leaving.
On Sunday being the second day of exhibition, parents were seen visiting the festival in large numbers with their children and they were buying various books which can be useful for their wards. Apart from books, they were finding interest in stalls which have educational activities for children like science kits, experiments, projects, puzzles, telescopes and binoculars.
Similarly, magic stalls where various magic items are available were seen busy with young children. As usual renowned publishers EMESCO have opened its stall and the organisers were busy with the visitors. “There is good response though it cannot be compared with Hyderabad or Vijayawada exhibitions. General, spiritual books and biographies have more demand now,” said the shopkeeper V S Nageswara Rao.
Bharatiya Kala Prakashan displayed huge collection of various English and Hindi books including novels, while Edusoft Learning Systems Pvt Ltd had number of CDs and DVDs through which one can learn lessons in various subjects. Some shops trying to attract visitors with boards that ‘any book Rs 100’ and ‘any book Rs 50.’ Most writings of Abdul Kalam, Sudha Murthy and others were available at Rs 100. One shopkeeper told that fiction books and biographies have huge demand.
Some shops have even kept used books also for sale. Noted publishers like National Book Trust of India, Ramakrishna Vivekananda publishers, Navarathana book house, Pyramid Spiritual Society and Visalandhra have come up with several new titles. “With these type of expos only, we come to know the latest books from celebrated as well as upcoming authors,” observed a book lover G V Reddy. The lectures by eminent personalities and cultural programmes in the evening will have an added attraction at the festival.
Speaking to The Hans India, Director and Treasurer of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan Dr N Satyanarayana Raju expressed satisfaction over the increased patronage for the book exhibition. “We started the exhibition with 25 stalls in 2006 and now it crossed 80 stalls. New publishers are adding to the list every year. Though TTD has number of stalls where their publications are available, their stall in exhibition gets good response,” he said.
“We wanted to see that the book readership must go up especially among youth without which the very existence of life will be meaningless. During the same time there was another book expo in Tirupur of Tamil Nadu and another one will start in Kakinada from February 10. Still, several major publications have come here.”
By V Pradeep Kumar