The Kolkata Book Fair, After 8 Years
I visited the Kolkata Book Fair 2026. After almost 8 years. Here is the ordinary analysis of everything I observed.
I came to know about the dates of the Kolkata Book Fair some time back, and noticed that I will be in the city during that time. And for some reason, I got very excited. I don’t think only nostalgia can make you this excited. But something did. I decided that I have to visit this time, for sure.
So, I did that. I visited the Kolkata Book Fair, almost after 8 years. Here is the ordinary analysis of everything that I witnessed.
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It was a Sunday. I reached the “Boimela Prangon” (The Book Fair Ground) around 6 PM. There was a huge deployment of police in that area, and the car was stopped well before it could take the U-turn to the gates. It felt a bit off that they were stopping vehicles so far ahead. Judging from the outside, I didn’t find it too crowded. I was proven very wrong quite soon.
When I entered through Gate number 4, it was packed. There was a distinct smell of fish and chicken coming from the food stalls. Won’t lie, that was quite appetising. I moved on to the first stall. Starmark by Emami. I don’t know why I entered that stall. It was just the nearest one, so I thought, “heh! Why not?” The stall had mostly acclaimed fiction and non-fiction.
I didn’t have any particular book in my mind before visiting. I thought I would explore different stalls, and if I liked any titles, I would buy them. There were 2-3 books I was planning to buy from Amazon anyway: Thinking, Fast and Slow, The Myth of Sisyphus, Meditations, etc. So if they were available in one of the stalls, I would go for them.
In the 2nd stall, I found Meditations. Picked it up casually. Was happy. Then something happened, and I remembered the saying of one of my uncles who used to advise us not to buy books from the Book Fair as they are ‘very costly’. I noted the price and checked online. Almost 3x. I quietly put that book down and continued my window shopping.
After that, I came near the Penguin Random House stall. It was crammed with people. They were trying to maintain a peaceful ambience inside. So there was a huge queue outside, people being let in in batches. Needless to say, I am not a fan of crowds (unless it is in a football stadium). So I decided to skip it altogether. But for some reason, it made me happy. That so many people are lining up to enter a store full of books.
I was thirsty at this point. The only stalls selling water were the food stalls, and they were unbearably crowded. 10x more than the Penguin House. So I had two choices: stand in the queue for a water bottle, or bear the thirst. I opted for the latter. Happily.
I continued my sojourn. Every year, the Kolkata Book Fair has a country theme. This year’s was Argentina. They had a few snippets about the country and some books written in Spanish. As usual, I understood nothing. I was wandering at this point. Aimless wandering is not bad, to be honest. In a mela, you need to do this kind of exploration. And then I saw two counters, radically opposite in both position and probably what they preach, giving out the Quran and the Bible. For free. Mostly, these stalls were empty. The Brahmo Samaj stall, which I came across soon after, was also like that. Empty.
Then I came across the country-specific sections, where mostly the representatives of different embassies have their stalls. Generally, there is a buzz around the stalls of the US, Russia, France. This year, for the first time in almost 20 years, the USA decided not to participate, while China returned after 15 years. Our ‘friendly’ neighbour, Bangladesh, also skipped twice in a row. Ukraine was a surprise debutant this time. But their stall was empty. There were a few participants in the France stall.
Announcements were going on thanking the CM for her help and cooperation. Which irked me a lot. But apparently that is the theme now. Be it the CM or the PM.
Then I came across the section of news publishers. The Times of India had something cooking. I couldn’t understand what or why, but people were lining up to get a book. Ei Somoy, a famous Bengali newspaper, had someone discussing something in Bengali. There was a stall for The Week also, which I found interesting. I didn’t know they were that big.
Now, the main part. Until this time, I had almost forgotten about the two big players of the book fair: Ananda Publishers (owned by the ABP Group) and Patra Bharati. We used to line up for these stalls. And most of our books would come from these two alone. Judging by the 100+ metre long curly queues at both, I would assume that this trend hadn’t changed. At all. The length of these two queues made the penguin one look quite puny.
It was almost 7:15. I was thirsty. I decided to call it a day. Left the premises. Crossed the road. I didn’t buy any books. But the nostalgic memories were well fed.
Ordinary thoughts, shared with hope. Pass it along if it resonated.