By the time you reach YMCA grounds in Nandanam, the hustle of the city is much more evident. Autorickshaws slow down, families walk in clusters, children tug at their parents’ hands, and vendors weave through gaps with bags of popcorn and balloons. Beyond this tangle of movement, the first of nine gates opens into what feels like a temporary city built out of paper and ink, beginning with the Bharatiyar Gate.
Inside, the air shifts. It carries the scent of print and dust, mixed with the aroma of coffee and fried snacks. People move with purpose and distraction. Voices overlap. Someone is calling out offers, someone else is reading a back cover aloud, and somewhere between the stalls, a school bag slips from a shoulder as a child crouches to examine a stack of Children’s literature. Tamil books dominate the shelves, and for many, this is a moment of pride, seeing their language occupy such a significant space. For others, there is a familiar ache in knowing the words are not theirs to read. Translations of works by Perumal Murugan, Bama, and Bharatiyar offer a bridge, but reading in one’s mother tongue still carries a different joy.
This is the 49th Chennai Book Fair, and this time around, the scale is immense. Around a thousand stalls stretch across the grounds, arranged under 12 categories that guide readers through fiction, politics, children’s books, translations, and academic texts.
Publishers have brought strong catalogues this year, many treating this as a prelude to next year’s golden jubilee celebrations. “As we are approaching the 50th year, publishers have brought excellent books, edition after edition,” says RS Shanmugam, president of Sri Senbaga Pathippakam and a member of the Booksellers and Publishers Association of South India (BAPASI).
The fair, he says, is meant not only for Chennai. “These books are displayed with the intention that not only Chennai readers, but readers coming from all over Tamil Nadu should buy and use them,” Shanmugam says. Entry has been made free, and visitors can register through their mobile phones instead of standing in queues. Those who leave their details while booking are included in daily lucky draws. “Every day, fifty or a hundred people, books worth about one Rs 1,000 will be given. We are not giving the books ourselves. They will be given book-value vouchers, and they can go inside these stalls and take the books themselves,” he says.
Pack your bags!
You walk in looking for a novel and leave with a book of essays. You come for exam guides and end up at a stall selling reprints of forgotten plays. Directories placed at the entrance map out which stalls carry which categories, and catalogues are kept inside for readers who want to plan their browsing. Still, most people let their feet decide. “The biggest expectation of readers is always the variety of books they can search for, read, and buy. All arrangements have been made so that every kind of book is available here,” says Shanmugam.
At one corner, used books are stacked in uneven piles, classics marked at discounted prices. Nearby, Neelam Books, specialising in anti-caste writing, sees a steady stream of young readers. A little further on, queer literature and small independent presses like Salt Publications sit beside larger publishers. Thirunangai Press has its own space. Mainstream and marginal literature share the same ground. Seating appears at intervals.
Drinking water stations are spread across the venue. Accessibility is still an issue that needs to be tackled, especially for people with disabilities. Toilet facilities, a long-standing complaint at public events, are monitored throughout the day, with cleaning staff working in shifts from late morning till evening, informed BAPASI members.
Transport, too, has been part of this year’s planning. Free mini-buses operate from Mount Road, and additional services connect visitors to nearby Metro stations and Saidapet, cutting down long walks under the sun. On most evenings, these buses carry not just students and families, but also older couples who have made this trip every January for years.
If the daytime belongs to browsing, evenings belong to conversation. Daily programmes include talks, debates, and reader sessions that spill into the pathways as people stop to listen from the edges. On January 13, Pongal will be marked with celebrations and performances of traditional Tamil arts, including Silambam, and other folk forms that rarely find space in formal auditoriums.
The event grows
When Chief Minister MK Stalin inaugurated the fair on Thursday, he spoke about how far it has come from its early days. “When this exhibition began, [it began] with just 13 stalls, today it has grown to [more than] 900 stalls and has become a testimony to success,” he said, welcoming the decision to waive the entry fee so that more people could attend. What gave him “special personal happiness,” he said, was the decision to honour writers through awards in the name of Kalaignar, funded by an endowment from Kalaignar’s personal savings. This year’s awards went to Sugumaran, Aadhavan Dheetchanya, R Murugan, Bharathiputhiran, KS Karuna Prasad, and V Geetha. “I feel happy and proud that these awards are being given today,” Stalin said, adding that books remained central to building a knowledgeable and progressive society.
He spoke of libraries, translation schemes, and reading as a shared social habit rather than a private one. “When two youngsters meet, they should be able to ask each other, ‘What book are you reading now?’” he said, urging families to bring children to the fair and introduce them to books early. “This exhibition does not belong only to writers. It belongs to everyone.”
Organisers expect around 20 lakh visitors this year. Walking out past the nine named gates, past the last cluster of food carts and waiting buses, the city resumes its usual noise. In the outer edges of the YMCA grounds, sellers from Moore Market spread out their collections, with books starting at `10, calling out to passersby with stacks of old Tamil magazines, battered bestsellers, and school guides. These stalls draw families who might hesitate before entering the larger publishing houses.
For a few weeks each year, books take over a piece of public space in Chennai, reminding the city that reading here has never been only about solitude. It has always been a shared experience.