Sharjah: A star-studded author line-up, including former president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, Ruskin Bond, Kamal Haasan and Ravinder Singh, best-sellers, higher publisher participation and a wide variety of books in diverse languages on sale drew massive crowds to the Indian Pavilion at the Sharjah International Book Fair (SIBF), making it a runaway hit. "We think at least 300,000 to 400,00 Indians were coming in...the largest number of people from any country actually. The maximum number of events were also from India," said Ravi DeeCee, CEO of DC Books that coordinated the entire Indian pavilion, bringing in publishers and big names from the Indian literary world.
The number of titles and publishers from India in fact increased by 50 percent compared to the past year. "We have about 65 publishers from India...The sales have been tremendous...it's (Indian stalls) been jam-packed on the weekends," Ravi told IANS on the concluding day of the fair Saturday. While the evenings saw whole families throng the stalls and meet-the-author sessions, the mornings brought in busloads of school children. And it's this massive Indian crowd that spurred author Ravinder Singh to tweet that the Sharjah Book Fair reminded him of the one in Delhi. There are 1.75 million Indians in the UAE.
Indian children's books like Amar Chitra Katha, school books and biographies of Indian leaders were on maximum demand. Books by Abdul Kalam, Ruskin Bond and Ravinder Singh flew off the shelves as readers snapped them up to get their own autographed copies then and there. Talking about Indian book sales, Samresh said: "According to SIBF figures, there has been an increase of 50 percent from last year for Indian publishers whereas publishers from other countries saw an increase of seven percent. There was demand for Urdu books of NBT and Sahitya Akademi...Going by the huge response, we are looking at bringing more NBT books for sale next time," Samresh added. But with a huge Malayali population in the UAE, Malayalam literature sure sold like hot cakes.
