When 86 stalls throw open their massive collection of books at a sprawling ground, it will certainly be a riot of letters. This was witnessed at the 10th annual edition of the Tirupati Book Festival, currently under way at the Sri Venkateswara High School grounds here.
Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan (BVB), which is organising the prestigious event, is leaving no stone unturned to draw readers. Interestingly, the first stall is dedicated to the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD), where an impressive array of religious and spiritual books is on display. A stall set up by Ramakrishna Vivekananda Publications is another attraction.
There is also an exclusive stall for Rayalaseema literature, and it houses books on the region’s hoary history as well as contemporary works by litterateurs hailing from the region. “While the region is synonymous to poverty, this stall shows there is no poverty in thought among the writers of Rayalaseema,” said former MLA and Seema activist B. Karunakar Reddy, who is also an avid reader.
Academic ambience is pervasive at the venue. Sudheer Kumar, an engineering graduate, finds the collection of books and compact discs on fluid mechanics interesting. “I consider it an investment, not an expenditure,” reasons Kumar.
“I make it a point to visit the festival every year and grab my favourite books, irrespective of the cost,” says K. Sudarshan, an art teacher working at the Government High School at Kalikiri. A resident of Chintaparthi, which is located some 100 km away from Tirupati, Sudarshan visits the temple town every year for the fest.
Meanwhile, cultural programmes organised as part of the book festival are drawing large crowds. “The crowd is so impressive now that it has surpassed the number of visitors at the recent Vijayawada Book Festival,” says N. Satyanarayana Raju, honorary director of BVB’s Tirupati Kendra. However, excessive focus on cultural programmes is weaning away people from stalls, complains a book stall owner.
