[GohJHM9k]

New Delhi World Book Fair - 2012 will be held at Pragati maidan, New Delhi from February 25 to March 4 2012.
Since this is one cultural event that we can deem to be allowed it will be nice to visit this event. So which books should I look for? My past experience is that it is very exhausting to visit a book fair and hence there is little possibility of socializing but if any SFer is visiting the book fair on the same date, that I'll tell some time later, then it will be nice to exchange salaam.
Wassalam

[23tommy]

I will most probably visit on the last day i.e. 4th. What have you planned, Uncle?

Assalaam'aaleykum!

[GohJHM9k]

It will be on March 1, 2012, IA.
Wassalam

[GohJHM9k]

Visiting the New Delhi World Book Fair - 2012

Yours truly woke up around quarter past four in the morning on March 1, 2012 - the date fixed for Book Fair. After some time there was a ring on the mobile phone. Is it the alarm? It looked a bit early for the 4:30AM alarm but was not - it was nearly 5AM. The alarm had ditched again. Caller was the person whom we shall call the Librarian for the sake of convenience. Are you awake - he asked and added that the vehicle shall be there at 6AM. And indeed the driver had come before time and was dozing off on his seat - that is their technology to catch with the sleep. Wonderful adaptation of homo sapiens to the circumstances created by Allah(SWT). Unfortunately some people get carried away and start asserting that there is one more step to that - evolution. A few knocks brought out the Librarian from the house - he was carrying a cup of tea for the driver.
"What about Fajr?", yours truly asked. The Congregation was a good 15 minutes later and it was possible to catch it in a mosque on the way. This is one of the myriad blessings of Lord Most High - when living in a town with sizable Muslim population
"To tell you the truth brother I have prayed already - you can do yours and come back", he said.
Since yours truly was already done with the two units Sunnah it was a matter of just few minutes when we were face to face again.
"Actually I meant that you could pray with the congregation", he said. Oh!
Communication is not a trivial task.

Soon we hit the road - two more academicians had to be picked up from their respective houses - one young another slightly senior. Normally both of them would be ready in time but not this time. But even then we were on the road once again within no time. Academicians, by the Grace of Allah (SWT), in this field do not have so many frills - unlike the academicians of other kind and some other species.

It was time to indulge in some gheebah of those people who divert their energies from academics to politics.
Indeed a silly way to transfer the reward of your good deeds. May Allah(SWT) forgive. Next time the urge to criticize them comes to you or me let us indulge in transfer of reward (eesaal-e-thawaab) for them. That way some benefit will come to us also.

The road that leads to Delhi from here is called the Grand Trunk or G.T. Road. A tribute to the administrative abilities of Sher Shah Soor. Was a remarkable king. In two years he not only gave what we now call G.T.Road, from Peshawar to Dhaka but also the postal and Sarai system. His tomb is in Sasaram in Bihar and the Young Academician made an intention to visit it. To make a journey to visit a tomb is not appreciated by the scholars but may be there will be some room for it because of the academic connection. Some time back the government decided to make G.T.Road a modern four lane road and hence it is all in patches bow now - some ready others dug up and hence one travels on a sort of unknown geography but the signs of future good road are there. Till now G.T. road was mostly a collection of very abrupt potholes. The extension work has taken a toll of the trees that lines the whole of the route. In the coming phase there will probably be plants on the divider and perhaps the sides but will there be the old magnificent trees?

The object of the visit was to recommend books for the Departmental Library. Locally it is called the Seminar Library, nay, the Seminar. A seminar is a lecture and the Seminar Library is a good name for it helps you to prepare your lecture but the name is not universal by any stretch of imagination. Consequently yours trult had the cringing feeling every time the Young Academician spoke about the seminar library to the stall in-charges in the Book Fair. By the grace of Allah(SWT) our seniors handed the Seminar Library in a very good state to us and again by the Grace of Allah(SWT) we have managed to maintain it to some extent. This has been in spite of severe financial conditions in past. The Young Academician was the trip in-charge also for being the junior academic in-charge of the Seminar Library - a task that was on yours truly till last year. There was a small round of backbiting of the future generation's would be incapability to handle the Seminar Library. May we be wrong.