Is Palace Grounds for 10 days so vital to the Bangalore Book Festival that it has to be cancelled as the venue is not available, ask bibliophiles and booksellers who look forward to the event that sees over 250 stalls.
“We did try holding it in a different venue in 2014, but failed miserably. Venue is key to the success of the festival. There is no other place suitable enough for the festival centrally located in the city,” said Nitin Shah, president, Bangalore Booksellers’ and Publishers’ Association, which organises the festival.
But the bibliophiles and booksellers beg to differ.
Guruprasad D. Narayana of Akruti Books in the city said that Palace Grounds was not indispensable and that organisers should look at other venues. “National College Grounds, also centrally located, has hosted even a Kannada Sahitya Sammelan and Pustaka Sante and can easily accommodate the book festival. It is also well connected by public transport than Palace Grounds,” he said, adding that even Freedom Park was a viable option. A month-long Khadi Utsav is currently under way at Freedom Park.
V. Ravichandar, organiser of Bengaluru Literature Festival, which has also faced issues over the venue, said that the city was starved of both public spaces and public events like a book festival. “The organisers need to think innovatively and not be bogged down by bureaucratic hurdles. They can even speak to the Defence establishment and rent out Field Marshal Manekshaw Parade Grounds. I don’t even rule out the two stadiums for the book festival. We need to reinvent these spaces,” he said, adding that the State government should empower events like the book festival and Bengaluru Habba.
Even as the city is faltering, neighbouring Tamil Nadu—that got its flagship Chennai Book Fair in 1977— has expanded the fair to tier II cities. “Apart from Chennai Book Fair, fairs in Madurai, Erode, and Coimbatore have turned out to be major business hubs. This apart from several smaller book fairs totalling 10 annually. Most publishing houses are drawing over 40% of their annual business turnover from these fairs,” said Kannan Sundaram, publisher of a Tamil publishing house Kalachuvadu Publications.
“Bengaluru is losing out on a rare opportunity. It is a very cosmopolitan city where books in English, Kannada, Tamil, Hindi, Malayalam, and Telugu sell well, only next to Delhi. The book festival was also a rare opportunity for the linguistic groups to buy books in their mother tongue,” Mr. Sundaram said.
