For those who swear it’s an online world for selling and buying, and that offline is dead, well almost, there is surprise in store. This notion and the myth that a majority of youngsters in the 16-36 age group aren’t much of book readers has been shattered at a unique three-day sale that is drawing hundreds of bibliophiles to Vasavi Kalyana Mandapam here, which usually hosts weddings.
When the doors opened at 9 a.m. on Friday, there was a virtual stampede. The offer posted on social media was simple: buy a carton, fill it with books of your choice, step out. The cartons by size were priced at ₹999, ₹1,499 and ₹2,499. Inside were rows and rows of books piled high with fiction dominating non-fiction, pulp-fiction, self-help books and dictionaries.
“I came with my friends to see if we could find something interesting and we ended up choosing many books. Initially, I thought we would fill one carton, but now two cartons are full,” said Swapnesh Ikkurthi, a student from Jindal Global Law School.
A bunch of volunteers helped and guided the book lovers as hundreds of youngsters jostled to browse through the books. Within an hour, the queues grew longer and it took at least half an hour for one to buy a carton.
Cramming books in one ₹2,499 box were six friends from the University of Hyderabad. “We liked a number of books and decided to go for the biggest box. We managed to fit all the books of our choice, but two are left out,” said Brahminy, a first-year computer science student, as her friends tried various permutations and combinations to fill the box.
Skipping breakfast, Sridhar Sattiraju rushed to the sale where hundreds of young and old book-lovers gathered near stacks of books by Bill Bryson, Anthony Horwitz, Wilber Smith, Sidney Sheldon, David Baldacci and Jeffrey Archer. For him, it was a joy to see thirty-minus youth at the sale.
“I found too many pulp fiction and neoclassical fiction and books bought by the ship containers from fire-sale in Western libraries which have been hitting the Indian shores of late. I went looking for non-fiction and I hardly found any except the occasional laugh-out-loud books by Pulitzer winners,” says the merchant banker.
But the younger lot had no complaints as they hunted down their favourite authors and genre to fill their cartons. “I have decided to spare an hour a day to read. I know mobile phones have become a way of life but I want to continue my reading,” said Utkarsh, who works in an e-commerce major.
Online to offline
The organiser couldn’t have asked for more. “There has been an overwhelming response. We never expected this kind of a turnout of people in the 16-36 age group. In three days, we expect about 35,000 shoppers to pick up books from us,” said Alok Raj Verma of Bookchor dealing in used books online, and now has branched into an offline avatar.
