The Kolkata Book Fair — the largest book fair in Asia that boasts the largest book fair attendance in the world — lived up to its reputation: an estimated 2.8 million visitors by the time the twelve-day fair closed on Sunday evening.
According to one of the Indian newspapers here, The Tribune, there were record sales at the Kolkata book fair: "The curtains came down on the Kolkata Book Fair which recorded an all time high turnout of book lovers and an impressive sale of Rs. 18 crore." (A crore is ten million, so Rs. 18 crore is equal to Rs. 180,000,000 — or US $4,000,000 at today's exchange rate.)
"Publishers and Booksellers Guild general secretary Kalyan Shah told reporters here that an estimated 28 lakh [2,800,000] persons visited the twelve-day fair from January 29 and books and periodicals worth Rs. 18 crore were sold."
Over the past twelve days, tens of thousands of bibliophiles visited our Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math bookstall at the fair. Every day, thousands of people — directed by Yudhamanyu Prabhu and Aravinda Lochan Prabhu distributing flyers on the fairground — crammed into our tiny booth searching for knowledge about so many things, and were exposed to knowledge above mortality.
Jagamohini Devi Dasi reports that over three thousand English, Bengali, and Hindi books were sold during the twelve-day period. We are grateful for the opportunity to try to revolutionize the consciousness of the sincere seekers who visited out bookstall by introducing them to the unique Krishna conception of divinity given in the books of our guru-varga.
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