CHENNAI: M. Elumalai is a regular at the Chennai Book Fair. He has visited the fair year after year for 40 years. But, he is not a book lover. In fact, he does not remember the last time he read a book.
As a newly-wed, Elumalai came to the fair as an electrician. Now at 66, he is still an electrician while the fair he helped build has come a long way since its days at the Mughal-e-Azam School on Anna Salai when Elumalai remembers, there were just around a dozen stalls.
According to the organisers, it takes around 300 workers to build the fair, working for around a month. Elumalai, for instance, would begin work at 10 in the morning and go on to work until 8 at night.
Every year when he would begin work for the fair, he was never the same person; he had become father twice, his son was diagnosed with severe mental disorder; his daughter got married.
But, his colleagues knew he would always return. Though he has left the company he was working for, he still works at the fair and picks up other independent assignments from his regular customers.