Imagine a spread of 50 lakh books in front of you and someone asking you to pick a book, your favourite, and gives it to you for free.
There was no other place in the City a bibliophile could have been on Saturday, other than the Pustaka Parishe at National College Grounds.
The Parishe, hosted by Srushti Ventures, is back again for three days beginning Saturday.
Every visitor was allowed to pick one book for free. By afternoon, the book fair had seen more than 2,000 visitors. However, this count did not include children and those who visited but had not picked up a book, according to the organisers.
According to their estimate, there were about 3,000 footfalls in all, until afternoon on the first day of the fair.
While on Saturday there were no sales of books, visitors can buy books on the other two days.
On Sunday and Monday, an hour or two was likely to be dedicated to the “Free Book” feature, a volunteer at the venue told Deccan Herald.
Children formed a considerable percentage of the visitors. Some of them had dropped in on the way back from school.
Since it was held in the grounds, children who had come to play also peeked in to check out the book fair.
Teju and his friends, all studying in class V were thrilled with all the books arranged before them. They ran their hands through every book with fascination, keenly studying the title, the name of the author, colours and the images on the book cover.
They were looking for two specific books though: The Ramayana and the Mahabharatha. Meanwhile, Teju proudly held on to a comic book which he chanced upon. “Tomorrow I will come back again for more and bring my parents along,” he said.
Nagaraja M S, a senior citizen who visited the book fair every year, said he would have loved to see some old magazines in the collection.
Since it was held in the grounds, children who had come to play also peeked in to check out the book fair.
Teju and his friends, all studying in class V were thrilled with all the books arranged before them. They ran their hands through every book with fascination, keenly studying the title, the name of the author, colours and the images on the book cover.
They were looking for two specific books though: The Ramayana and the Mahabharatha. Meanwhile, Teju proudly held on to a comic book which he chanced upon. “Tomorrow I will come back again for more and bring my parents along,” he said.
Nagaraja M S, a senior citizen who visited the book fair every year, said he would have loved to see some old magazines in the collection.