Parting away from the indispensable smartphones is a rare sacrifice that people are willing to make to engage in something productive and brainstorming. And it’s not just the technology but also the addiction to alcohol that drives people crazy, and the COVID times have seen the worst of it. Thousands and millions of people lined outside liquor shops to quench their irresistible toxic thirst. Also, the kids nowadays hardly know the charm of the smell of the pages of a book.
But something really wonderful was spotted in the City of Joy, Kolkata, which exemplifies its army of bibliophiles.
Recently a photo of a queue outside a bookstore in Kolkata surfaced on the internet, baffling many. When the said store announced a special discount offer, people gathered outside it to pick their favorite books.
Her second tweet mentioned that the queue was outside Dey’s Publishing store after announcing a 50 percent discount as an Independence Day offer.
Photo of the queue in front of a publisher’s store in Kolkata.
— Diptakirti Chaudhuri (@diptakirti) August 11, 2021
Every city lines up for booze. Only Kolkata lines up for books. pic.twitter.com/aSqJgMASCa
Just then, the picture went viral, and it now has thousands of likes and comments from Twitterati. Netizens praised the people of Kolkata and said that it was pleasing to see a city that still has so much love for books and literature.
Also, read: In The Land Of Tagore, This 129-Year-Old Library Is Dying A Slow Death. Where Are You Kolkata?
Nice to see the youth lining up before book store !
— Sreenivas Bidari 🇮🇳 (@BidariSreenivas) August 12, 2021
But it’s not new or unique to any one city !
Whenever a sale was on, I used to see such lines waiting for gates to open at @crossword_book at Kemp’s Corner, Mumbai
&@oxfordbookstore near Churchgate Mumbai
Yet few users said that the publishing stores could have used online platforms to sell the books and avoid crowding people during the COVID-19 pandemic.
covid & social distancing gaye bhaad mein & anywhere in India discount sale attracts queues right?
— P D Sathish Chandra (@pdschandra) August 11, 2021
Do you feel like visiting a bookstore? Take ample precautions if you do.