By Shradha Swain
Bhubaneswar, Dec. 9: Come winter and the city of Bhubaneswar is all bustling with book fairs back to back. It has been hardly a month since the Kalinga Book Fair had ended that we had the 10th Rajdhani Book Fair. The book fair at the Exhibition Ground that commenced on November 28 ended on Wednesday.

The theme of this year's Rajdhani Book Fair being “Protection of Odia Language and Literature”, the Odia book stalls were placed strategically so that they immediately catch the attention of the people who visit the exhibition. It's the older ones who were more interested in the regional literature. Spiritual books being very popular among the older masses, they were the major crowd puller amongst the older generation.

About this year's book fair, Upendra Kumar Jena, President of Rajdhani Book Fair said, “We have published a reference book named Odia Pustak Prakashan Suchi. The book contains information about Odia publications published from the year 1802 to 2009. We have also organised a 10 day long literary function and cultural programme.”

The book fair witnessed an increase in the number of foot-falls over the years. “We have increased the number of stalls this year to 450 from 350 stalls last year,” said Bidhu Bhusan Pattnayak, Secretary of Rajdhani Book Fair.

The best part about the fair was that it connected the kids to books. It was indeed a great opportunity for parents to help their children find the books they want to read. The parents and the children had fun choosing books together.

For all who thought book fairs are just about books only, the fair had stalls which sold magic items and they were a huge hit amongst the young crowd.

The matter of concern is that the young crowd was not very keen on reading the Odia literature. The young crowd was to be found in stalls which sold academic books, general reference books and competitive exam books.

Youngsters were interested in buying books from the fair just for the simple reason that they got them at a discounted price. Not many were looking out for specific books on literature and language.

Rakesh Mohanty, a student said, “I read more as a matter of compulsion and not as a matter of choice.”

“A book fair is supposed to be a medium which facilitates people to read voraciously and read beyond the prescribed text books. It's a place where one can find books from various genres under a single roof and readers have easy access to multiple reading options to choose from. If the youth are not motivated to read, then the very purpose of a book fair is defeated. The triumph of a book fair lies not in achieving more foot-falls with each passing year,” said a senior citizen at the fair.

The actual victory will be when more people will be motivated to read because the youth of today are the future of tomorrow, he added.