A Maruti Eeco stacked with 500 books and with the words ‘Poems on the Road’ painted on it is on a 10,000 km road trip across the country.
Behind the wheel is Satabdi Mishra, who along with her partner Akshaya Bahibala in 2014 founded Walking Bookfairs – a mobile bookstore that is aimed at helping thousands of young people in the hinterland get access to books and develop a love for reading. ‘Poems on the Road’ is a campaign aimed at generating interest in books and poetry across the country.
Kindling interest
Ms. Mishra, a Mass Communications graduate, and Mr. Bahibala, who is a writer, left comfortable jobs at a publishing house to found Walking Bookfairs. The couple hail from Bhubaneswar and own a small bookstore back home.
“‘Poems on the Road’ inspires young readers to connect with books and encourages them to recite some poems on a microphone before an audience,” says Ms. Mishra. “We travelled on a scooter to Kerala after starting this venture in 2014, and later in 2015, we travelled across India for three months.
The couple promotes reading at their store with an annual library fee of Rs 500. They first covered all districts in Odisha in their van before travelling to other states.
“We are supporting this tour partly through book sales from our travelling bookstore. Three reputed national publishing houses HarperCollins India, Pan Macmillan India and Speaking Tiger Books are also partnering us for ‘Poems on the Road’,” said Ms. Mishra.
‘Open Mic’
“We are an independent bookstore and we do not accept or believe in corporate sponsorship,” she added.
Their stops are always along the roadside or near schools and colleges, where students can read or recite at the ‘Open Mic’. The journey started on December 13 in Bhubaneswar, from where they went to Cuttack, Sambalpur, Raipur, Khammam and Hyderabad. From Hyderabad, the couple arrived in Anantapur in the last week of December and after a two-day stop is now driving to Bengaluru and Mysore.
Later, they will stop in Coimbatore from where they will drive to Kochi, Margao, and Pune on January 11.
The last leg of the journey will include Mumbai, Indore, Udaipur, and New Delhi before ending the campaign in Kolkata on February 13.
