Chennai International Book Fair..,!

Only Book lovers will know the sanctity of that mesmerizing fragrance that emanates from the pages of a tightly bounded book. Well, that fresh whiff gusting in almost every direction, right from the parking lot, to the temporarily sprouted cafeteria making a perfect blend with the  hot steams of coffees and dosas,  leave you 'spell bounded' in the Chennai International Book Fair.

A teenager is making  brisk business, serving hot coffees, to the crowd, and also offering them a complimentary by guiding them towards the right stall to find the book they want. Ask him for paulo coelho, and he'll show you the 14th shop in the 4th lane. Ask for journals and magazines, he'll inform that it's available in almost all lanes. This is just one of the many, such unusual, healthy thing thats happening for the past 10 days in the fair.

I entered the gigantic, artificially erected tent, covering up for almost 100 square km, consisting of 10 lanes, each lane filled with numerous stalls, and each stall brimming with frenzy readers, fiddling through large pile of books, almost hypnotized by it's incense. Everything and everywhere smell of books, and everyone speak of it, in minute details. This form of art, which lay dormant in it's publicity and business for the rest of the year, is organized as a commercial fair, reaching out to the masses.

Very much like a bride carnival, where the brides and grooms mutually look out for their prospective partner, the books piled up here yearn for a suitable reader, and the reader is in turn on the look out for the books savoring their souls, resulting in the culmination of 2 mutually, soulful searches.  With it's attractively designed covers and the enthrallingly written preface, it seems as though the readers are haunted by the soul of the book. Each book speak in their own way, conversing with the reader's mind at various levels subjective to their exposure and knowledge.

If you're having an ear for politics, the book stall having karl marx, Mao and other activists squeal in your ears. If you're that little grown up kid still vying eye for an adventure, the harry potter, and lord of the the rings speak to you in large volumes. The stalls specially dedicated to competitive exams pull your legs, if you're one of that arduous studying geek. The crime novels and detective fiction cater to the spying quotient in you. Many books are so readable that you tend to finish off reading it then and there. Movie aficionados have large collection of books ranging from good reviews to the deep introspection of the great movies of all time.

The love for books begin to ebb in you, and the throbbing crowd and the mass appeal for it may make you wish, you writing your first novel, and it finding it's place in one of the stalls. It doesn't stop with inculcating the reading instinct in you,but also sow the thought weed of getting your hands dirty on writing. The tamil book stalls bring out the long forgotten childhood love for historical classics. Familiar authors and less familiar books are stacked around speaking volumes of it's equanimity to it's wide reached, much celebrated english counterparts.Often heard author names, like akhilan, prebanjan, sundara ramaswamy, janakiraman, sujatha excavate the deep hidden sweet nostalgia, thanks to the school teachers and grandmas incepting the legacy of these great writers in our memory.

For extremely lucky ones, this may even be the place for a start of a love story. You're in look out for a book, and you find someone in opposite sex  scouting for the same author or book and you happen to know it accidentally, and this could brew a love wave, provided you make a bold attempt to start conversation in someway. ;) I'll say more than  a college, more than temples and churches, a book shop is far more a better, divine place to make  a love story sprout. Because here, the attraction for each other happens at the intellectual level, rather at the physical level.

But, for some, whatever I've narrated from the start of this post, may seem undecipherable. The book speak to the people, who're not into reading, and who hardly even read a news paper, in sign language. It has nothing to share or pull these rusted minds, filled with their mass hero movies and unnerving crassness. They look out for something that cater to their limited knowledge and constrained self awareness. Their outlook is shaped by their surroundings. Their creativity is artificially nurtured by the necessity. Not everyone be a sportsman. Not everyone can excel in chess. Not everyone can be book worm excelling in academics. But everyone has to be a reader. Because quenching the creative thirst, is a fundamental, vital need for a soul. So, if you don't read, it can be said, there's something you lack in your fundamentals basically.