World Samskritam Book Fair - 18

I was in the World Samskritam book fair (all the 4 days) from 7th Jan 2011 to 10th Jan 2011. Some facts of this fair:

(1) Book sales: 1st day Rs. 1.1 Crore, 2nd day 1.3 Crore and 3rd day 1.4 Crore and forth must be much less as most books got sold out and it was Monday. Yet the total is estimated to be around 5 crore rupees.

(2) In Food court all our traditional food items like sugarcane juice, gulkand, tender coconut were available at affordable cost and Pepsis, Cocca Colas, Burgers, etc. were consciously absent.

(3) I couldn't spot a cigarette smoker (except the policemen who were smoking on the road!) in the vicinity on all 4 days (this single thing itself can be termed as Bharatiya Samskriti).

(4) Samskrita Bharati arranged stay and food on all 4 days for just Rs. 200 per person - no one can imagine such subsidised rates that too in Bangalore for over 12,000 people from all around India.

(5) Not even in temples you can see so many people with such traditional attire - Dothi /Saree and many with uttariyam/angavastram and Shika (kudumi).

(6) Despite the lack of any major security arrangements like gun totting Policemen or security guards (security was fully managed by volunteers) all 4 days were very peaceful - well behaved crowd (Samskritam is certainly the vehicle of Samskriti).

(7) Witnessing the success of the show in the first day itself Utranjal state has invited to conduct the next fair in their state, similarly Chatisgarg and few others

(8) As per a book seller Rashtriya Samskrita Samstanam alone have took over 2,000 book orders as their stocks got sold out on 2nd day itself.

(9) Several high level grammar books and Kavyam books on Samskritam went out of stock on first day itself (the 12,000 odd visitors who came to the show as guests themselves bought those books).

(10) I personally picked up about 15 books (most are predetermined - Samskrita Bharati released over 60 books especially for this book fair yet I could browse anyone of them - such was the crowd) carrying these books around was another challenge due to crowd.

(11) Exhibition was a grand success as focus was on Science and Maths - children loved the exhibition than the book fair.

(12) Brisk sale of Products made of Panchgavyam were (like Gomutra ark, Honey, Panchagavya soap) at the Samskrita Grama on Sunday - by the Shankara Mutt from Gokarna - they also were out of stock by evening 5 itself.

(13) The auditorium where speeches and performances taken place was also occupied with over 1000 people most of time and was full with over 1500 people during musical and cultural events

(14) One estimate says over 5 lakh people visited the fair

(15) The fair could've been organised in a bigger place as except the first two days I couldn't enter the book fair hall and all the days I couldn't spend time with the book stalls either for clarifying doubts or browsing books - such was the crowd. Yet all these are excused as this being the first show of its kind.

(16) Wikipedia came and invited all to contribute in their Samskritam encyclopedia

(17) Many people were able to converse or at least understand Samskritam - this was another success of the show

(18) Last but the least on the last 2 days there were over 60 people standing in queue from 11.30 AM till 4.30 PM not for Water not for food - just to enter the book fair hall.

Thanks to Samskrita Bharati and the people of Bangaluru.

By the way I was also happy to visit to Big tree at Lal Bagh