Hindi fares well at the DBF

They brought books on Anna, but ironically it was Anna who took the limelight away. The opening day of the Delhi Book Fair at Pragati Maidan drew a lukewarm response, and publishers who had dotted pathways leading to the hall with posters of books on Anna Hazare expecting the social worker’s popularity to sweep the sales, were left disappointed because all roads in the capital led to Ramlila Grounds this weekend.
Assuring that there’s no cause for concern over the lack of crowds at the fair, V. K. Gauba, officer on special duty, at ITPO, said, “The footfall takes time to pick up. It’s a 9-day-long fair and we’ve seen in the past that the last few days have had the highest turnout. So we can expect the usual packed halls by the next weekend.”

While the focus this year will be on travel and tourism, participants also inform that alongwith English and Hindi, a sizeable percentage of books were in other 16 official languages. Raghuvir Verma of Prabhat Prakashan, says, “The 10 top selling Hindi publishers are regulars (at the fair), but vernacular languages like Urdu, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, have caught up. In fact a lot many visitors come looking for these languages and foreign stalls as well.”

Parth Kumar, Class 4 student of Vivekanand School, Vivek Vihar, was busy looking for Hindi versions of Anne Frank’s Diary and Ruskin Bond’s Rusty series. “They have a little problem following their favourite author JK Rowling in English and certain terms need to be explained. But the novels in Hindi are a breeze,” informs his mother.

Full report here Asian Age