BHUBANESWAR: A city-based popular bookstore Walking Bookfairs has initiated a unique tour of 30 cities in 20 states Thursday. The tour titled ‘Poems on the Road’ would span more than 10,000 km and will conduct poem library, open mic and poetry recital sessions at all these places.
Founder of Walking Bookfairs Akshaya Routray said, “This year, we would only take poetry books in the tour as poetry is a genre which needs to be promoted well among youngsters. We will also organise poetry and musical sessions in every place that we reach.”
“The ‘Poems on the Road’ initiative will provide a chance to thousands of people across the country from all social backgrounds to browse, read and buy the best poetry books from around the world and also provide a unique democratic platform to the youth of our country to come together, share their stories, open up the debate about various problems around us, exchange new ideas for social justice and change through poetry,” he added.
Co-founder of the bookstore Satabdi Mishra said, “We will organise the programme in major cities of the state such as Cuttack and Sambalpur before starting our journey to other cities like Raipur, Khammam, Hyderabad, Anantapur, Bangalore, Mysore, Coimbatore, Kochi, Margao Goa, Assagao Goa, Pune, Mumbai, Indore, Ahmedabad, Udaipur, Jaipur, Gurgaon, Delhi, Sonipat, Chandigarh , Dehradun, Greater Noida, Agra, Lucknow, Patna, Ranchi and Kolkata among others.
“We have travelled more than 25,000 km in several of our tours in the last five years. Books which are bought online take away the emotional attachment of a book lover. Literature is all about emotions. Through this tour, we will try to boost love for books. We will also organise music and poetry reading sessions,” she added.
Routray said that this might be their last tour as it is quite difficult to sustain these tours without any financial support. “However, we will continue to spread the love for books through our initiative,” he said.
The group has more than 500 books in their van in which they would travel all these cities. The two-month-long tour which is pan-Indian in nature spreads across 10,000 km, 30 cities, 20 states of the country. Three reputed national publishing houses HarperCollins India, Pan Macmillan India and Speaking Tiger Books are also partnering with the group in their unique initiative.
On the occasion, several youngsters took part in the open mic and poetry reading sessions to share their experiences, and speak up through stories, songs and poems. Aishwarya Priyadarshini, a working employee of a private institution, recited poems about the poor people. She said that she writes poetry and dreams of publishing her works someday. She said that poetry has the power to touch many aspects in small words. However, such talent can only be gained through reading.
Another student Sumeet shared a poetry piece about ‘love at first sight’. All these participants would also receive a certificate and book mark as a mark of the team’s appreciation. The tour will conclude February 14, 2019.