6TH Ahmedabad (Amdavad) National Book Fair – 2017
Gujarat University Convention Centre, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India
Date : May 1, 2017 to May 7, 2017
The Entire event was dedicated to Renowned Gujarati Ghazal Writer fondly known as Mariz’s 100th Birth Anniversary.
Writing About the above event, I would first like to thank my friend and Mentor Dr. Nidhi Shendurnikar Tere, because of whom I was motivated to attend this Book fair and unleash the potential entertainment, wisdom and knowledge hidden in Gujarati Literature, Poetries, Drama, know about Authors, poets, appreciate their work, numerous books and enjoy the entire fair. Dedicating these lyrics of one of my favourite song to Dr. Nidhi Shendurnikar Tere and the entire cast, crew, management and renowned guests and speakers at the 6th Ahmedabad National Book fair 2017.
“Un Rango se tune milaya, jin rango se mein mil na payi, Dil karta hai tera shukriya”
Well, I and my friend Nidhi weren’t able to attend the fair for the entire week, but will share with you the moments that we have witnessed and will always cherish for the lifetime.
Day 2 : May 2, 2017 – Tuesday
The day started at 12 pm in the afternoon, when we reached at the book fair for the first time, we were amazed to see the entrance arrangements that were made with posters, banners promoting “Vaanche Gujarat” and featuring works and details of renowned writers and poets of Gujarat like Zaverchand Meghani and works of some unpublished new age authors and poets which were selected by a contest prior to Ahmedabad National Book fair.
When we entered the premises and saw the reception area, a centrally air conditioned premises seemed eager to take us through the journey of entire book fair, workshops, author meet, children’s corner and much much more in the scorching heat and hot and humid temperature that the city of Ahmedabad faces every day in summer.
We went through the Stalls exhibition hall at a glance as we wanted to attend the Writing Workshop that was to be conducted in the afternoon. We knew about the writing workshop but didn’t knew that topic for the day was Blog Writing until Nidhi picked up the Informative Leaflet distributed outside the Workshop hall.
BLOG WRITING WORKSHOP
The Workshop hall was named “Taarak Mehta Hall” and I for a moment remembered this humorous author and the amazing “Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashma.”
Then, came in Ms. Aarti Patel, An Amazing Artist and host at the show “Zindagi Express” on 94.3 My FM who welcomed the audience and introduced the Mentor of the workshop, senior journalist Mr. Urvish Kothari, the stage was then taken over by the mentor, who shared his blogging experience, the history of blogging, how can we create a better blog reading experience for the reader and many such useful tips which you can check in the link below:
IN CONVERSATION WITH THE AUTHORS
Out of excitement to meet the renowned author and poet – Ms. Kaajal Oza Vaidya and Mr. Ankit Trivedi in the “Conversations with authors” session in the hall named Kavikant Hall, we left the Blog Writing session after the First half and went to meet the two of ours and everyone’s favourite authors. The hall was jam-packed as Ms. Kaajal Oza Vaidya and Mr. Ankit Trivedi arrived, we were fortunate to grab our seats quickly as people didn’t were standing throughout session to listen to both and ask questions and interact with them.
You can view the entire conversation here :
My most favourite take away was when Ms. Kaajal Oza Vaidya said :
“Atmakatha no tukdo na hoy to Naval katha na bane” meaning “If a part of Autobiography is missing, novel cannot be crafted”
On day 2, we left after having tea after this session, but we enjoyed a lot.
Day 3 : May 3, 2017 : Wednesday
POETRY RECITATION
On day 2, we decided that we will come for the poetry recitation session on day 3 and then look into how we progress further. So as decided we both went for the Poetry recitation session at Kavikant Hall in the Book fair. I am not a big fan of Poetries, still as Ms. Aarti Patel, was one of the member who were to recite the poems, it attracted me, amazing poetries were recited by Mr. Manish Pathak, Ms. Aarti Patel and Ms. Jigisha Trivedi. We felt as if we would have missed a lot if we wouldn’t have attended the session.
You can view the entire recital session here:
SHORT TALES OF GUJARATI AUTHORS
Up Next was the Story Telling session, where the stories were of Gujarati Authors – Shri Pannalal Patel and Shri Ishwar Petlikar and the story tellers were my favourite – Mr. Chirag Tripathi and Ahmedabad’s favourite Morning Alarm – RJ Dhvanit.
Initially, Mr. Kirit Dudhat explained the Gujarati Story Telling as a process and narrated the life stories of Authors whose stories were to be told. He also shared the story writing styles of both the authors and how were both the styles unique and different. Two stories
- Bapu no Kutro by Shri Pannalal Patel
- Lohi ni Sagaai by Shri Ishwar Petlikar
Were narrated by Chirag Sir and Dhvanit who have powerful and unique background of working with and in a way living the Radio Life. We were astonished and amazed to see how the way you tell stories grips the audience and raises the emotional levels within and how effective can story telling and interpretations become when narrated through the emotions of your voice and voice modulations.
To my surprise, there was a lady behind me who started crying and became emotional when Chirag Sir and Dhvanit were narrating the story – Lohi ni sagaai which reflects the love and care of a mother for her daughter who suffers from mental illness and the ending become tragic yet emotional when mother also becomes mentally ill.
Our friend Disha, also accompanied us in the story telling session and we three were happy that we witnessed such a unique story telling session.
Kudos to the authors and the Narrators – Chirag Sir and Dhvanit.
Check the video out here:
Our day at the Book fair ended with a cup of tea.
Due to some personal commitments of ours we didn’t happen to visit the fair on Day 4 and 5.
Day 6 – May 6, 2017, Saturday
DRAMA WRITING WORKSHOP:
Our day started with attending Drama Writing Workshop by Mr. Mahesh Champaklal. He shared some amazing Drama Writing, story telling and characterization views and tips through his words. The takeaway for me was
“A Dramatist Recreates Time and Place”
GHAZAL RECITATION
The second attraction of the day was the Ghazal Recitals again by my favourite Chirag Tripathi Sir accompanied by Ms. Purvi Oza and Mr. Nisarg Trivedi. As such I am not a fan of Ghazal singing, but I must say, these ghazals of “Murdhanya Shayars” were truly amazing and way these three recited the same was just mesmerizing.
EXPLORING THE BOOK FAIR EXHIBITION AND STALLS
After Ghazal Recitation session, we went to explore the books in various stalls and I was amazed to see the books written by various popular authors, some not so popular authors but amazing write ups on various topics, various publication houses where books published by their own publication house were featured, a dedicated stall on Jainism was the stall that attracted me the most where I found how a foreigner understands and interprets Jainism as a religion of peace and has written an amazing book on the same. Loved the collection there.
AUTHORS CORNER BY AHMEDABAD BOOK CLUB
This was one place, we realized lately that we had not yet explored in the first 2 days, so on day 6, we went to attend a session on “Sanskar sinchan ma Bhasha nu Mahatva” by Ms. Bansari Thakkar meaning “Importance Of Language in Crafting one’s Character and Personality.” It was a very thought provoking session. Moreover, it was a treat to meet Ms. Falguni Vasavada Oza and a treat to listen to Ms. Khurshid Ravji and Ms. Ilaxi Patel at the Authors corner.
BOOK COVER LAUNCH OF FIRST BOOK OF AHMEDABAD’S MOST CELEBRATED AND LOVED MORNING ALARM – RJ DHVANIT’S MORNING MANTRA
The Main attraction of the day at the Book fair was the Book cover Launch of First Book of Ahmedabad’s most Celebrated and loved Morning Alarm – RJ Dhvanit, which will be published shortly by Navbharat Sahitya Mandir for which Dhvanit will be the 251st Author and the name of his book is “Morning Mantra” which is a compilation of the #GoodMorning Thoughts that he shares on the radio each day, every day.
There was heavy crowd who had come to attend the book cover launch, amongst the crowd many beautiful and memorable interactions happened, but the one which touched my heart was the Handicapped girl, who travelled all the way from Mahudi to Ahmedabad just to interact with Dhvanit and express her feeling as to how Dhvanit’s Morning Mantra and his voice inspires her to overcome the thought of being handicapped and achieve what she wishes to.
That girl is promised a free copy autographed by RJ Dhvanit whenever the book gets launched. This interaction made me think how a person can conquer, inspire, encourage the entire community through the voice that he/she possess, I felt convinced somewhere that my belief that a good face is not the only that makes one fall in love with you or makes you fall in love with someone, you can encourange and inspire yourself and others through your voice and actions, intellect and spread positivity and freshness wherever you go. Be confident that you are unique and precious in your own way.
I could very well correlate with the song lyrics – “Naam Gum Jaayega, Chehra yeh badal jaayega, Meri Aawaaz hi pehchaan hai, gar yaad rahe”
So, this was all about my journey through the 6th Ahmedabad National Book fair 2017, it was well conceptualized, well managed, workshops, recital sessions, Children’s Corner – Rang Rang Vadadiya, the Food court, the reading spaces, Author’s corner were truly amazing, this was a fair which was truly a worth visiting experience.
Normally, all of us have the tendency to remember the events, front-end performers but we forget the efforts done by the back-stage team.
Hence I wish to applaud and appreciate the efforts done by the back-end unit – the back-stage performers – the entire 6th Ahmedabad National Book Fair Team, the entire Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation Staff Members and Management, Gujarat University Convention Convention Centre – GMDC Staff and Management, and all the others involved whom I probably may not know, a very big Thank You to all of you.
The details posted here is only on the basis of the events that I have attended and the way I see them, there were many other events which I have not attended so those are not described here.If you loved the post, wish to criticize it or give your suggestions, please write to me at Kejal.bhimani@gmail.com.
L-I-F-E 
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