Today was the last day of Delhi international book fair and reached almost at time. I reached at around 2:30 pm. The fair was scheduled to be wrapped up within 5pm. I knew that it’s the last day and people will give atleast 1 hour extra. The book fair at pragati maidan is quite smaller than what i expected. In kolkata ,book fair is celebrated with hyper enthusiasm and relatively large and better arrangements. Anyways the delhi book fair hardly looked and felt like an international fair. Apart from a big stall for germany i didn’t see any other “firangi’ stall. Kolkata book fair attracts huge amount of international attention. i was bit shocked to see that the people who are manning the stalls ,volunteers and customers are mostly bengalis. Well, It’s a well known fact that bongs have inherited the love for books right from the british era- when ‘kolkata’ was ‘calcutta’ and was known as the literature and education capital of india. 
I thought of getting good discounts but the publishers are offering a max of 20% discount. That was really ridiculous, I expected more. This wasthe first time i went to delhi book fair and by the time i was coming out i could make out one important thing – delhites are not at all book appreciators. Mostly people were from Eastern India or Southern India.I heard some conversations which are not likely in delhi. People talking about Genghis Khan and Napoleon Bonaparte.i think the situation will definately improve if delhites take more interest in meaningful things like books.
At the end - i got the books which i was looking for(didn’t get the expected discount though).One thing io really appreciated is that there was a huge crowd in hindi pavillion. These days parents want their kids to read Tolkien,Ruskin bond but not prem chand. That’s really a pity! As someone cruel once said “India is a country of Copycats”.Overall, the fair is average, definately not up to the mark for a city like delhi. But there lot of room for improvement and participation.
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