Books on Wheels

Books can change the world. This is the premise with which Walking BookFairs started its journey.

- Sanghamitra Chakraborty

Satabdi Mishra and Akshaya Rautaray became friends over books and ideas. And, like every true bibliophile, they wanted to share their love of books with the world. So they converted a mini-van into a travelling bookshop and started a journey that is now Walking BookFairs.

Though they have a store back home in Bhubaneswar, from where they sell books, Mishra, 34, and Rautaray, 36, are happiest taking their books to corners of India where few have. Starting 15 December last year, they travelled 10,000 kilometres, across 20 states, over 90 days with a book truck to spread the message of reading.

The seeds of the idea were sown when Mishra and Rautaray started talking about rights and responsibilities, and how they could contribute towards creating “a world without boundaries”. Books and reading, they were convinced, would play a crucial role. However, they realized the challenge lay in providing access to those who have none. “We can’t just talk, we must do something, we thought. And that is how we started Walking BookFairs in 2014,” says Mishra. Rautaray quit his job at a bookstore, while Mishra was taking a break after her baby at the time.

Having perceived the difficulty of the common man stepping into a bookshop, they decided they would break those barriers by “taking books to them”. With no resources to start a bookshop, they filled their backpacks with books and reached Koraput, in rural Odisha, one day. Wandering through the village roads, they displayed (Oriya and English) books at bus stops, footpaths and other public spaces. They stopped and handed out books wherever they spotted a crowd. Ordinary village folk eventually started picking them up, casting aside their inhibitions. Every time curious children gathered around them, they sat down and read to them. “We had the best time reading stories to a bunch of children,” says Mishra.