Frankfurt Buch Messe und Stalin in Frankfurt

Hi

Its been quite a long since I actually wrote something.
Actually nothing ‘writable’ was happening in life !!!
But last weekend (7-8 Oct 2006) was rather eventful.

On Saturday, I visited the Frankfurt Buch Messe , I mean Frankfurt international Book fair.
I believe it is quite an event held bi-annually. I decided to go to this fair,I did not want to miss this opportunity. All of you know, I love to read. I expected that if I was lucky enough may be I could lay my hands on some good books at reasonable rates and who knows I may get a chance to meet some celebrity writers also.And guess what, this time the guest nation was India.
So the feeling of Nationality, ‘Mera Gaon-Mera Desh’, ‘Jis desh mein Ganga rehta hai’ err… Jis desh mein Ganga behti hai’ over took me and I decided to checkout this fair. But when you go to a fair, you should be atleast two people… Mele mein bichad kar phir milne ka mazaa aur hi hai…….
But sadly none of my bright engineer friends , desh ke ujwal aur chamakte sitaare, were least interesed in BOOK FAIR of all the places. After all weekends are to enjoy !!! So I decided to go alone (Patriotic feeling still boiling in me). So just as I was about to leave, another equally patriotic friend of mine…I should use a more proper word for him… an ‘equally’ Erudite friend of mine – Satish Kattamuri (avunu manode !!!) decided to join me. I was happy, my heart singing , ‘Jahan daal daal par…..’
Apart from this ‘Mera bharat mahaan’ feeling, I was also thinking of the many books I have read, apart from the academic ones. Tried to recollect Indian authors names from them. Only one name popped up in my mind- ‘Arundhati Roy’, one more name came to my mind ‘Salman Rushdie’. Salman I discounted, he is more of a British than India, though I love his books. And Ms Roy, God of small things ‘ is good, But now Ms Roy – a Pseudo-Secularist , a communist-leaning , fame and award hungry so-called social activist, reminded me of a old TV series ‘Titliyaan’.

This fair was a fairly good one, with representations from through out the world. One thing I observed was, in all the language or country stalls, there were books related to India. Pretty good job, I must say. The Publishers have been quite busy !!! Then there was an Indian arena, Various publishers and distributors had displayed their publishings. There was a government stall also, by Sahitya academy. It displayed the sahitya academy award winning books. It was government stall for sure. All the stalls in the fair had a representative to talk to the visitors and help them out and even take orders. But our Sarkaari jamai had gone somewhere else leaving this stall vacant. His neighbouring stall lady , had an extra job of telling the visitors that the ‘Gentle’man had gone somewhere- I guess for sight seeing.

This fair was mostly from the business point of view. It was more for Publishers and distributors than we private visitors. Hopefully, India has made best use of this golden opportunity.

There was Film and TV section also. Again special promotion of Indian films. The day I went the movie ‘Kabhi Alvida na kehna ‘ was being shown. Ofcourse we immediately bade Alvida to the Movie section and also the Fair.

Next day was quite different, Stalin was visiting Frankfurt…. No, not the Russian dictator… Our own Chiru. The movie Stalin was being shown in Frankfurt cinema (one show). The Telugu ass(ociation of Frankfurt – TELUGU VELUGU had organised this show. For the entertainment (HA HA HA) of the telugu knowing people residing in Frankfurt.
Rather pathetic and painful movie.
The level of ignorance of our movie-makers is evident from the title of the movie. And also Sharada (Chiru’s mother in the movie) explains in the movie why he is named Stalin. But the producers may have forgotten that this Russian dictator was responsible for the death of more than 10 million of his own people in the name of implementing his communist agenda. Strangely the movie is called Stalin-Man for the people.
My advise,if you are a Chiru fan, do not watch this movie. You will lose whatever the fanity (new word coined by me, meaning the feeling of being a fan) you have for him.



-Sandeep Kulkarni

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