Our Cybercafe Has Shifted: The World Book Fair 2010, New Delhi

The last time I was at the Flipkart traveling cybercafe was at the Bangalore Book Fair a few months ago. The 19th New Delhi World Book Fair at Pragati Maidan is on a scale many times bigger (thus explaining the “World” part), but the scale was not the only reason I got lost when I first got there.

Terrible signage. Absolutely.

You have no idea where you are, and where you need to go and how you need to get there with reference to where you are. Don’t give me the “You are not a man, men can read a maps” crap. Au contraire, Men don’t ask for directions, but this place forced my hand.

The polite lady at the Information / Help Desk was patient and precise. I have since then troubled her about other Halls, about where Parking is, where the nearest tea guy is, where I can buy Fevikwik. God bless her. Tomorrow, I plan to stun her with this:

“Ma’am, may I know your name?”

The Flipkart stall (No. 62 - No. 65) is just as you walk in through one of two entrances to Hall 4, right next to IBH. The one with a lot of computers and says “Flipkart.com”. And if you buy a book, they may even let you check mail.

I got there straight from the airport last evening, and sadly just missed Ahalya of the Literary Angels. We had briefly corresponded a while back and I was of course pleasantly surprised she’d dropped by and left a card behind, “For Tapas from the Blog”. Ahalya, if you’re reading this, hope you had a pleasant journey back. Will buzz once in Bangalore. {If any of you competitors A, B, C even so much as pretend spam him, I swear … }

Strolled around a bit, got a few bearings. Met some “industry people” hello-shelloed … the usual. One of them said, “We should catch up sometime, discuss work. I’ll have my people call you.”

NOTE TO SELF:
a> Get a real designation. Blog guy won’t last long.
b> Get some people of my own. It’s about time I had people.

Before I knew it, the guards were Tweeting. WHISTLES (that’s what Tweet meant, back in my day). So I Tweeted as well (Twitter, this time).

Today was my first complete day, of course. It kick-started with a seminar of sorts, with Publishers and Distributors from around India. We had a little talk explaining who we are and what we do. All that was fine and well, including the Q & A where a lot of ambiguities were no longer uncertain. Lots of regional language guys as well.

If you are a Publisher/Distributor and want to come on board with us, I can summarise the entire Seminar thus. In the words of Sujeet:

“Price according to your terms, service according to our terms”

Not to worry, we have two other presentation slots lined up: 4th Feb and 5th Feb. Do make us an offer we can’t refuse.

Hetal sent me a mail and he mentioned the “Why Flipkart Works” write-up on the Chaupaati.in Blog, one thing led to another … a few Tweets and ReTweets … and Kashyap Deorah got dragged into it.

(If you’re wondering who Kashyap is, read the post. If you’ve read the post and are still wondering who he is, I’m afraid I can’t help much. If you’re wondering who Hetal is, I won’t tell. Because you’ll go spam him.)

So Kashyap and me are just getting into a Phone-pe-Deal discussion and how Flipkart isn’t into it yet and how and when and why, and I mention Dial A Book, and possibly this chap’s got something to do with it.

I type in “this chap’s” name and just then a couple of random guys stroll in to the stall looking for me. I say “Hello …” and he says, “We’ve mailed each other a long time ago, etc. etc., I’m” and I point at the screen and say “Look, I just typed out your name!”

How would you react if you’re meeting somebody for the first time, someone you’d exchanged mails with a long time ago. You don’t have a plan and he doesn’t know you’re coming to see him. You may not even know for sure whether he’s there or not, but you drop in anyway. You introduce yourself, and he points at the screen and says “I was just telling Chaupaati Kashyap about you.”

Exactly. Yes, exactly. That’s how that chap reacted too.

NOTE TO SELF:
a> I have special powers. I don’t need people.
b> I have special powers, I don’t need b>

The chap then buggered off to probably run some GA on me. He did — to his credit — leave me Abhishek of the Shack for company, and we shot the breeze about roasting coffee, ecofarming, clowns, manual SLRs, smoking pipes, cuisine of the malabar coast, discovering Bangalore, plates of idli (Quantity 3) that cost not much (Rs. 5).

You know, the usual.

We ended the day by distributing snacks amongst the guards that lock up the Delhi World Book Fair every evening at 8, only to re-open the next morning at 10:30.

See you there.