People read more books than before when Covid-19 caused restrictions to be clamped and threw life out of gear. Two major publishers, who attended the launch of a compilation of stories, titled Mon Bhalo Kora Golpo, shared this startling development on Sunday.
The launch, organised by New Town Boi Mela Samity, took place at Swapno Bhor senior citizens’ club. “We have organised the fair seven times but have never published a book. So many organisations have been doing their bit, by donating oxygen concentrators or setting up oxygen parlours. We do not have so much resources. But we thought we could make a difference by providing oxygen for the mind,” said Samity president Urmila Sen, explaining the rationale behind publishing the compilation of 53 stories.
That is possibly what people have been doing too — reaching out to books to be in a positive mental space when they were locked down at home with no other work at hand, said Sudhangshu Sekhar Dey, owner of Dey’s Publishing and president of Publishers and Booksellers Guild. “It was apprehended that the publishing trade would be finished in the lockdown. But books became people’s companions in that period of solitude. We got calls from buyers saying that they had finished reading all the books kept in the racks unread all these years and were asking us for new titles.”
Dey’s had to introduce an online payment gateway on its website during the lockdown and started a delivery service. “And when we re-opened, there was a queue at our counter as people rushed to buy books.” Even now, Dey’s is getting a healthy volume of orders online. “Smart phones have reached more hands now and the elderly are still not confident enough to come to College Street. So orders are coming to us this way.”
Of course, it would not be fair to compare the figures with pre-coronavirus times when educational institutes and libraries, which place bulk orders, were open, but individuals are buying and reading books in healthy numbers, he added.
The pandemic has redefined what is luxury and what is necessity, said Rupa Majumdar, director of Deb Sahitya Kutir, who was also present at the launch. “Books must have been considered a necessity by a lot of people as our sales figures suggest that reading increased during the lockdown,” she said.
The shop re-opened in end-May and from June, home delivery was started. “During the lockdown itself, my Facebook Messenger was flooded with messages from strangers requesting books to be sent. Overnight, we floated a new WhatsApp number just to accept orders, turned a couple of our drivers who owned bikes into delivery boys, handed them my son’s school bags as I myself planned out an area-wise delivery roster for them,” said Majumdar.
It helped that the Deb Sahitya Kutir godown is in the same building as her residence and some menial workers hailing from neighbouring states had got stuck in Calcutta due to the sudden lockdown announcement. “They helped me search for the required titles in the godown.”
Both publishers have hosted mini book fairs, one in January in south Kolkata and another this August in College Street, and got robust footfall, though mostly of the younger generation. “The elderly are still wary about stepping out,” said Dey.
Survivors feted
The book that was launched that evening had contributions from both established names, like Pracheta Gupta, Swapnomoy Chakraborty and theatre personality Debshankar Halder, and not-so-famous ones. A contribution came from as far as Bangkok, from Jayati Roy. Some members of the Book Fair Samity also contributed, including Rajorshi Narayan Patranabis and Pijush Ranjan Ghosh, who jointly conducted the event.
Several elderly members of Swapno Bhor were in attendance. They must have taken director, medical education, Debasish Bhattacharya’s words to heart. “We are all tired — we, doctors, who are fighting in the Covid frontline and those who are sitting at home, scared to death of catching Covid. But we have to fight on, each one of us,” he said.
NKDA chairman Debashis Sen said copies of the book would be kept at the New Town Library in Nazrul Tirtha and all its satellite centres.
Artiste Shuvaprasanna recalled settling in a co-operative building in Salt Lake, before building his BH Block house and subsequently his museum Arts Acre in New Town, with close to 850 paintings from a range of artistes. He also shared his experience of being hospitalised in Covid times. “It was as if I had reached a different world, like in Chander Pahar. Everyone looked the same in the faceless suit. Nobody spoke, except in gestures. You could not even tell men and women apart. It was so eerie. All our lives, we have fought for positivity in every field. But now we send up prayers to stay negative every time we have to take a Covid test.”
As part of the aim of making people feel good, the organisers handed over copies of the book along with other titles to 14 residents who had beaten Covid. This included three Swapno Bhor members — Balai Chandra Ghosh, Jayanta Mukherjee and Bhaskar Sardar, who is also the secretary of the senior citizens’ Durga puja held at the venue.
Three Snehodiya residents from across the street were also felicitated. “I got Covid in July last year. When I was taken to hospital I was senseless. When I returned after 12 days, every neighbour at Snehodiya clapped from his or her balcony,” recalled Manabendra Roy Chowdhury, 84. Two of his neighbours to be also invited were Arun Kumar Patra, 83, and Ratna Roy Chowdhury, 78 .
