And they point as evidence to the Sixth Delhi Book Fair, which concluded last week in the Capital. While the more critical decried it as "a not too great show", many others just made the rounds quietly, buying their yearly supply of books. The Delhi Book Fair, like the World Book Fair, witnesses crowds in huge numbers. And though publishers complain that "most visitors come to see the books, few to buy", the fact that books are still things people want to see and flip through, comes out loud and clear. And that's good enough.

Like most other things, the book market can also be divided into segments. There are children's books, fiction, political or subjective books. While children's books and popular fiction are doing very well, there is a visible fall in the academic books segment. Here. too, there is an exception. Management and IT books, say most publishers and book-sellers, is doing very well. At the fair, one of the best-selling writers, after children's writers of course, was Shiv Khera.

Says S Balwant, president, Federation of Indian Publishers (FIP), "Children's books are doing well due to a number of reasons. First, we have parents who are more aware, parents who want their children to read. Also, there are new subjects that are being talked about. Things like computers and environment, which were somewhere in the background, are being discovered by young readers, giving them a chance to learn a lot."And though the initial days of the fair didn't see very many visitors, thanks to the red alert in the Capital because of Independence Day, the crowds increased once August 15 had passed.

Some 250 publishers participated in the book fair this year. The fair authorities expect to net a 10 per cent increase in sales this year, against Rs 2.38 crore last year. Says Mouskar S C, GM, ITPO, "Though the initial days saw a damp response, it got better by the day. Today, we have a growing set of readers, ones who want to read more, learn more. So the book market, which seemed to be be dying down a few years ago, has been revived again and will grow rapidly, for at least the next 10 years."

To keep up the sales figures, the authorities have decided to hold the fair on the Saturday before August 15 every year. "August has been chosen because this is the time when most academic sessions start. Schoolchildren, college-goers, all want new books. Plus it only gives more opportunity to book lovers to buy their favourite books at discounted rates."

Arti, a visitor at the fair, summed it up justly: "The book market in India has just woken up. There are of course people who have been reading all along, through the years, but now, reading is an `in' thing, if you might call it that." Amen to that.