An elderly man walking around with copies of a self-published Bengali book accosts visitors: “This has been authored by me, would you please like to buy it?”

Just when you feel sorry for him, you notice a more fortunate author doing the same thing, only that he is stationed at the stall of Penguin Random House, his publisher. “Hello!” Nemat Sadat, the author of The Carpet Weaver, calls out to those entering the stall, “Would you like to buy this book? It’s got good reviews.”

For a writer, finding readers may be a challenge, but readers out to find writers are spoilt for choice, as is obvious at the ongoing Kolkata Book Fair, the 10-day annual event showing every year that the printed word can still produce an explosion of activity in the age of smartphones.

Huge diversity

With close to 600 stalls and attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors every day — last year some 2.4 million people came — the event calls itself, perhaps rightly, the largest book fair in the world. And this being Kolkata, politics is invariably a dominating factor, more so this year, when the country is witnessing widespread protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) and the prospect of a National Register of Citizens (NRC). And this also being Kolkata, with a long history of inclusiveness, all kinds of political thought have found space at the book fair.

No one can miss the giant screens showing angry speeches of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. Her detractors don’t have the luxury of such screens but they are also attracting visitors. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad has been assigned — call it a coincidence — stall no. 370. The books being sold here include those on Kashmir, Ayodhya and CAA. A man hands each visitor a pamphlet on the CAA.

Exactly opposite — perhaps again by coincidence — is the stall of Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat, where a poster explains why the word “jihad” is a “misunderstood concept” and where a banner declares, “Love for all, hatred for none.”

Brisk business

Not very far from the stall of Vishwa Hindu Parishad are the stalls of publishers from Bangladesh, doing brisk business. The signboard of one Bengali publisher, Bijalpa, says “Entire Political Science”, even though the books it is selling are not even remotely connected to the subject. Meanwhile, men and boys are handing out pocket-size copies of the Bible, which people are gladly accepting because it is being given for free.

Then there is the stall of the Students’ Federation of India, manned by erudite youngsters. Here too, you find booklets on the NRC, and on Kashmir. “We have two booklets on the NRC and both have sold 500 copies each so far. T-shirts with anti-NRC slogans are also out of stock now,” said Rana Roy, one of the men at the counter, who is also a member of the SFI central committee.” Then he volunteers an opinion, “Both [Narendra] Modi and Mamata are out to finish democracy. They are two sides of the same coin.”

And finally, disparate ideologies converge at the food stalls — footfalls at which are bound to make book stalls envious. Books, food, political discourse — all in a day’s outing. What more can Kolkata ask for?