Buddhadeb Bhattcharjee lights the inaugural lamp with Nirendranath Chakraborty and Sunil Gangopadhyay by his side. Picture by Sanjoy Chattopadhyaya

It’s a bonus for book lovers out there. The Book Bazar has started on the Nandan complex, featuring 80 stalls belonging to publishers big and small.

“Since the book fair was held this year in Salt Lake, many in south Calcutta could not go all the way. They were hungry for an alternative,’ said Tridib Chattopadhyay, the general secretary of Publishers and Booksellers Guild which has organised the fair in collaboration with Bangla Akademi.

The inauguration of the 12th edition of World Book Day celebrations happened on April 23. Chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee did the honours in the presence of authors Sunil Gangopadhyay and Nirendranath Chakraborty.

“I have never seen such a crowd on the second day of the Book Bazar,” Chattopadhyay said on Friday evening, as more and more people walked in. On the dais then fiery speeches were being delivered on the contribution of little magazines to literature, with Ananda Gopal Sengupta of Samakalin threatening to bludgeon whoever used the term. “We are literary magazines,” he stated.

People were delighted to find that many booksellers were offering discounts in excess of the 10 per cent customary at fairs. “Some are even selling second-hand books with as much as 80 per cent off,” beamed Amit Chakraborty, who had dropped by on way home from his Dalhousie Square office.

Indeed, the Mitra Ghosh Publishers stall is stocking select titles. Almost new copies of Pramathanath Bishi’s Keri Saheber Munshi, Ashapurna Devi’s Subarnalata or Narayan Gangopadhyay’s Sunandor Journal are going at 25 per cent off, while partially soiled volumes of Ashapurna Devi or Tarashankar Bandyopadhyay’s complete works are on offer at 40 to 50 per cent discounts. “These are books which get soiled by travelling to and from the district fairs or in the warehouses. We would otherwise sell them off as trash or donate to charitable libraries. The Book Bazar allows us to reach the books to readers at a discounted price,” said Sabitendranath Roy of Mitra Ghosh. Second-hand art books and encyclopaedia are available at Kwality Book Company.

There are books from the US, Romania and Africa too. Look out for fresh copies of a variety of American literary journals at Rs 100 apiece.

Asian screen

The poster of the Borat film

Shah Rukh Khan is hale and hearty but a film by Mohammad Ehteshamuddin screened at Gorky Sadan on Friday was called Shahrukh Khan Ki Maut. The 55-minute film is about a Pakistani Boy who worships the Bollywood superstar. It was one of the 10 films shown by Eisenstein Cine Club at Asian Film World: Fade In Fade Out.

The screenings began on Wednesday with Ali Kazimi’s Continuous Journey and Borat: Cultural Learning of America for Benefit of Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. Thursday saw World of Montu by Ashim Dutta and Samira Makmalbaf’s Black Boards.

“We are screening Asian films this month because a lot of Asian countries celebrate their New Year around this time. The films chosen show Asian life with an element of black humour,” said Gautam Ghosh, the programming officer of Gorky Sadan.

Other films to be shown are Yeh Pakistan, Woh Hindustan by Ehteshamuddin and Two in One by K. Linh on Monday. Mahesh Thattatil’s Mulavar and Kim Ki Duk’s Spring Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring are slated for Tuesday.

Cemetery project

The Scottish cemetery in Park Circus

It is said that at one time there were more Scotsmen in Calcutta than anywhere else in the world. Think of the number of managing agency houses and mills with Scottish names. St Andrew’s church in Dalhousie Square was built by the Scots is in good repair.

But the Scottish cemetery in Park Circus is in a mess. With headstones rolling all over the grounds and overgrown with weeds it is quite unlike the other graveyards, which are quite well maintained. The cemetery has over 1,600 headstones, some of Aberdeen granite and many of the names of the people interred there are obviously Scottish like Anderson, McGregor and Campbell. There are many Bengalis as well.

The Kolkata Scottish Heritage Trust has drawn up a Scottish Cemetery Project whose aims are: Following the ideals of Sir Patrick Geddes, to manage the Scottish Cemetery as a managed green space which can be a ‘lung’ for the surrounding population. To restore as many of the monuments as possible, for the benefit of the Scots whose relatives lie there, and for genealogists, and to establish a centre for training in the traditional building skills necessary for the repair and restoration of the monuments as well as of the traditional buildings of Calcutta.

Formed at the initiative of Intach, the trust will raise funds for the project. The trust will be launched in the consulate general of India in Edinburgh on May 8. The trustees at the start will be Lord Bruce (chairman), Elizabeth Guest, Bashabi Fraser and Ian Stein. Charles Bruce will possibly visit Calcutta in winter around the time of the Book Fair for the launch of the project.

(Contributed by Sudeshna Banerjee, Malini Banerjee and Soumitra Das)