Being with Books!!

Books are incredible containers of knowledge which is vast and deep than any ocean in the world. A man’s life is blessed when he attains knowledge. Education is that process of gaining knowledge that each man undergoes in his life-time. Before going on further let me make the point clear, this article is not about how books change a man’s life or the need of being educated. This is about a Trivandrum DC-ian’s life, who in his 2 years of PG life with the institution for sure attends the DC International Book Fair and Cultural Fest and becomes a part of the festival.

Disclaimer – This is a fragment from my memory of the book fair and is narrated from my perspective. There might / might not be differences of opinion for my fellow-mates. Some incidents are avoided intentionally and I might have missed out a few. Will try to be true to the best of what I can recollect.

There are two segments of the festival that is going to be briefly expressed which are –

The Green Days – 6^th DC International Book Fair & Cultural Fest, 2008

The Black Days – 9^th DC International Book Fair & Cultural Fest, 2009

For any DC-ian books and various publishing houses are not alien but household names. The sole reason being, DC Group a leading publishing house, and the yearly Book Fair it hoists every year at Trivandrum, Cochin and Bangalore. The privilege to any student of the DC fraternity is being part of at least one of the book festival and handling the stalls of different publishing houses. An alumnus of the Trivandrum institute, DCSMAT School of Media & Business, I would be elaborating on the 6^th and 9^th DC International Book Fair which was held at Trivandrum, Chandra Shekaran Nair Stadium.

The Green Days

It was around the beginning of the second term of our first year that we came to know, from our faculties, the details of the DC International Book Fair and Cultural Fest. Later on another version of the same was given to us by our seniors. At the end of the day, we were puzzled and had a negative feeling towards the whole event. In between all this 2 factors that attracted us was – No sessions / college for 2 weeks followed by a holiday for 2 days and being paid for being at the stalls. Another attraction was the promised visit of celebrities and personalities from the field of literature, cinema, politics and anything that can be named.

There was huge cry by students showing disagreement of participating at the Book Fair which was wonderfully tackled by the faculty council and management. A marketing assignment with grades based on the sales achievement and report of the activities at the event. There couldn’t be worse news for us, who were planning to abscond from the city.

Finally the day arrived, 28^th of October of 2010, the first day of the 6^th DC International Book Fair & Cultural Fest and we had started our journey towards the venue from the institution after an orientation in the morning. The ride towards the venue was fun with all of us singing classic songs, and something which was amusing was the green T-shirt for all of us (boys & girls); the whole vehicle looked like a moving jungle. On reaching the venue, we were given some time to roam around the stadium and click photos. After about 30 minutes, we were ushered into the stock room where the allotment of stalls and distribution of bill books was done by the Marketing Manager of DC Books and a faculty of ours. One thing was made clear to us on day 1 – the attendance is going to be recorded and is going to be strict on the same and the stocks have to be reported daily to the concerned floor manager.

The next scene opens with the doors of the indoor stadium unbolted to reveal the stalls of various publishing houses and students trying to locate their respective stations. Following this was the tiresome task of getting the boxes from the stock room and arranging the books on the shelves and tables. It was as if the world’s worst job had been assigned to us and this was purposeful. But then by the evening we had a satisfied expression of having clean and arranged stalls. Now the venue was full of books and green all over the place. There was a light crowd in the venue but not much of sales happened. At around 9:30 we made our trip back to our hostels, stinking and tired, with the weight of going back the next day. The next day was the least we all were looking on to but yes the enjoyment of the trip was there with its josh and infact it had grown to a competition of two groups – one singing Hindi songs and the other singing Malayalam alone.

From day 2, crowd started pulling in to the stadium and the sales started picking up. The days ahead till November 10^th were all about publishing houses, titles, authors, books, getting foot-falls into the stall, bill books, discounts, individual sales, institutional sales, achieving sales target for the day, and making relation with the customers.   

The cultural fest every day evening was a feast to the local people and for subject lovers of poetry, folk-dance, literature and so on. This was also the time when we got to meet with distinguished personalities.

Another factor which had already become a weak-point to all of us from Day 2 was the delicious food served to us at the venue from the Police Canteen.

The final day dawned, and few in our batch were trying hard to make sure their targets were reached and also the stocks cleared in due time. A heavy dinner, a special treat from the canteen, was the highlight of the day. Waving off bye to the customers and repeat customers, all of us had credits to our individual accounts of both achieving or over achieving targets and prizes given of for the same. Another segment which was awarded was for the Best Visual Merchandising. At the end of the day, after the group dinner and settling of accounts including the compensation offered to us, we all had a group snap taken with students, employees of DC Books, the CEO and other staffs. While going back to our rooms, we all had numerous memories and learning’s from the 12 day event.

An official end to 6^th DC International Book Fair & Cultural Fest!

The Black Days

This time we were more prepared since we knew what was coming up and thus we had demands to make to the management on certain topics. The primary demand was a different colored shirt, Black, with the logo of the college printed on the back. The main reason that we had started demanding was because we from our previous year experience had learned what professionalism meant, how an event like Book Fair can be used to brand our batch and college. This had led us to putting up a stall for promoting our institution, a management fest – Pranavom, an event in association a leading FM Radio Channel, and numerous other branding possibilities including an exclusive News-letter by the students. The branding activity, after the News-letter, which was most liked by us, was the photo display of the best moments of a DC-ians life in the screen opposite the institution stall. Life was more fun during the second year, the 9^th DC International Book Fair & Cultural Fest, with added responsibilities and new system set-up to handle the sales and flow during the exhibition. The food tasted even better this year and the strain was less compared to the previous year.

The pressure and the life of the first year went missing in the second but added responsibilities and divided work made things easier and better managed. The only drawback of the days was another event that was happening simultaneously at the grounds and their loud voices (they had better sound systems) for 4 days at a stretch.

Pranavom went on to become a known name among the target group, under-graduate students, and students flocked in as expected. The event we had planned with the leading FM Radio Channel bombed because of bad climate and constant rains.

At the end of the 12^th day, we had to an extent effectively branded ourselves, our institution and also our Radio Channel, Radio DC 90.4, via different channels. The photographs, the articles, the guest signs, and messages had made our efforts worth.

An official end to 9^th DC International Book Fair & Cultural Fest!

It’s that time of the year, once again, where the Trivandrum DC-ians are back to setting up the 12 day long event, the 11^th DC International Book Fair & Cultural Fest. Missing the days of learning names of different authors, their works, the best books of the year, and the one’s not to miss, the learning of different sales & marketing techniques. The DC-ian life has a lot to give and lots to learn. Happy to be a part of the fraternity that rules the industry of publishing based from Kerala.