ADDA SESSION: (From left) Jerome Beaujour, Jean Echenoz and French Association director Nicolas Blasquez at Coffee House. Picture by Aranya Sen

Twelve years ago, Goncourt Prize-winning author Jean Echenoz had landed in Mumbai on his way to Calcutta. “I was told there that the Book Fair had burnt down.”

Echenoz is back this time, only to find the Book Fair missing yet again. “But this is my first visit,” a protesting voice comes alive at his side. It belongs to Jerome Beaujour, renowned screenplay writer and Echenoz’s travelling companion on the tour.

The two have been about town, one revisiting memories and the other absorbing novelty and busting impressions created by hearsay. But it is Pondicherry, his earlier stop, that Beaujour brings up. “There was this elephant which was blessing people near a temple,” he says in excited French, before admitting that he had not sought to be blessed.

His seek-and-hide affair with Calcutta Book Fair notwithstanding, Echenoz points out that the book fair in Paris would be having India as the theme for its 2007 edition.

But that fair has undergone a shift in venue as well, much to the duo’s disappointment. “The Grand Palais, the traditional venue, is a beautiful century-old glass exhibition hall in a prestigious location — near Champs Elysees by the Seine. The fair had to move out when the building closed for maintenance. But it reopened in 2005 after a gap of 12 years. Still the book fair continues to be held at the new site though other events, like fashion shows, are being held at Grand Palais.” What hurts them is the fact that the public is not bothered about books to call for the fair’s reinstatement from the current venue, Porte du Versailles, which they describe as “a modern ugly building”.

That brings them to the state of the book trade in France. “The majority of people read one book a year, that, too, a bestseller,” says Echenoz. “The book fair is the only time when there is a frisson about books.”

Films fare no better. In Beaujour’s estimate, just about five films do very well. “Of them, three would be American, one French and another an UFO.” For the record, about 150 films get made in France annually.

Beaujour wrote the script for an adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Yellow Iris just before setting off for India. Echenoz is also working on a sequel to one of is earlier works. “Now, we are planning a project together,” he smiles.

In Calcutta, College Street drove them to transports of delight. If they found the Coffee House to be “full of history”, the sight of the concentration of books was a bigger high. “It is a unique place in the world. It is like a dream,” they gush. Perhaps that one visit was enough to make them forget what they missed.