2016 Trips: Trip No. 1- To New Delhi Once Again

The New Year showed how lucky I am when it comes to matters related to books. It had been turning out to be an impossible dream of mine of visiting the World Book Fair at New Delhi at least once. I had been dreaming about it since the past few years. Usually the World Book Fair is held sometime in February every year for about ten days I guess. This year somehow it was advanced to January and 17th January, a Sunday, was the last day of the WBF.

Last Saturday, i.e., 16th of January an unexpected chance opened up for me to go to New Delhi on urgent mission related to office work. A Public Interest Litigation on drought was coming up for hearing before the Supreme Court on Monday (18th Jan) and the Government advocate wanted an affidavit to be handed over him before the hearing at any cost. We had the affidavit ready but the question remained how to send it to New Delhi by Monday morning. I sensed an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone and volunteered to travel to Delhi.

On Sunday morning I was on way to New Delhi on an early morning flight. As the plane took off I thanked my stars for aligning in such a way as to make one of my dreams come true. After landing at Delhi I rushed to the advocate’s office and handed over the affidavit. I was relieved when he told me that it was okay after he had read it. I had drafted it hurriedly and had got it approved by my boss the day before. I was told that Pragati Maidan, the venue of the WBF was quite close. It was almost noon so I decided to have an early lunch and rushed to Pragati Maidan and spent half a day browsing in the stalls. I bought a total of six books for myself and returned to my brother’s home to spend the night there. I was returning on Monday.

Compared to Hyderabad it was quite cold in New Delhi with the temperature somewhere around 10 degrees. I had come prepared but I found it difficult to ward off the chill. The next morning after a nice breakfast I left for the airport. My flight was at half past twelve and I reached the airport quite early. I spent more than an hour browsing in the airport stalls. There seem to be newer stalls every time I come to the IGI domestic terminal. However I couldn’t find a single bookstall anywhere which was quite surprising. I was back in Hyderabad by half past four and noticed that the weather was fantastic with a warm sun.