Duration
The fair traditionally starts on the last Wednesday of January, and ends on the first or second Sunday of February (to ensure that the duration is always 12 days). It was initially a week-long event but popular demand forced authorities to extend the duration to 12 days in 2005. Even though there is usually an extended holiday in Calcutta during the period of January 23 (Netaji's birthday) to January 26 ( Republic Day of India) the fair is held at the beginning of February to overlap with the payday of most Kolkatans.
The fair typically overlaps with the Hindu festival of Saraswati Puja. Saraswati is the Goddess of Learning, and hence many Hindu households observe the day by worshipping books on that day and not touching books for any other purpose. This practice causes a lower footfall on the corresponding day in the book fair.
Read more about this topic: Kolkata Book Fair
Famous quotes containing the word duration:
“What matters it that man should have a little more knowledge of the universe? If he has it, he gets little higher. Is he not always infinitely removed from the end, and is not the duration of our life equally removed from eternity, even if it lasts ten years longer?”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)
“This pond never breaks up so soon as the others in this neighborhood, on account both of its greater depth and its having no stream passing through it to melt or wear away the ice.... It indicates better than any water hereabouts the absolute progress of the season, being least affected by transient changes of temperature. A severe cold of a few days’ duration in March may very much retard the opening of the former ponds, while the temperature of Walden increases almost uninterruptedly.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Higher than the question of our duration is the question of our deserving. Immortality will come to such as are fit for it, and he would be a great soul in future must be a great soul now.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)