My Experience at the 2008 Delhi Book Fair

By Charlene Morrow

On Wednesday, January 30, 2008, I left Oklahoma City for Denver to begin an adventure to India.  I met up with my traveling companions, Paula Thompson and Buck and Arlene Weimer.  From this trip we have become wonderful friends.  We were loaded to the max with 64 Urantia Books, Jesus, A New Revelation, Urdu samplers, 9,000 spiritual vitamins, 5, 000 brochures especially designed by Buck for Hindu India, DVD’s and Life after Death booklets.  Our destination was Delhi for a biannual book fair, the largest in Asia.  It was held at a convention center named Pragati Maidan.  This book fair drew tens of thousands of people interested in new books, books for schools, publishing houses, and all manner of educational materials.  Representatives were there from Japan, France, Spain, America, Russia, and many other countries as well as all parts of India.

We settled into our hotel, LaSagrita, after a 20 plus hour flight changing planes in Frankfort, Germany.  The longer we were at LaSagrita the more pleased we were with our accommodations.  We had friendly helpers, clean and comfortable beds, hot water, and most to our liking – western style bath.

It was only a 10 minute cab ride to the convention center. 

Agustin and Mario joined us the next morning.  We loaded part of the books, 2 banners, several posters, and supplies and headed for the book fair.  We were met by a ready supply of people wanting to help (whether you needed it or not).  With Buck supervising and the help of an Indian man we got the booth space rearranged.  Urantia Books, JANR, and Urdu samplers were displayed.  We learned later to remove the dust jacket from the U Books to show a solid blue cover.  It was less inclined to look Christian.

The book fair opened with a ceremony where the Russians were honored as co-sponsors of the event.  They had a large display and provided musicians at the event.  There was also a large presentation of the life and works of Mahatma Gandhi which was impressive.

The crowd was very friendly toward our booth and came over easily to receive a spiritual vitamin helping each other read and explain the quotes.  We had great times visiting with the people as they tried to make out these new thoughts.  Thank you, thank you to Larry and Donna for providing these magic scrolls.  Most were especially pleased that we were not bringing a new religion, but only spiritual truths for all people of all faiths.  The more curious ones would come on into the booth and sit down to read through the table of contents and index.  We didn’t know how to price the book.  We only wanted them to show real interest by asking a price.  We started at 500 rupees, but quickly learned that was way too much.  Our neighbor from Nepal told us 300 rupees was like a day’s pay for a hotel clerk.  For a time we settled on 300, but ended with 200 rupees or less.  We gave them to students and anyone who seemed unable to purchase it and were interested.  By the time we closed the booth we had nothing left – no books, no vitamins, no brochures.  We ran out of the brochures after a couple of days and a neighbor, a Hindi name Gobi, who Buck became acquainted with had 1,000 more printed at no cost.  Before it was over he had purchased a Urantia Book himself.

We reached people of all faiths, Hindu, Moslem, Sikh, Christian.  The only one I had a problem with was a Christian fundamentalist who was upset because we had a picture on a Hindi sampler of Jesus with Krishna.  The Hindus loved the picture and wanted to know where to get it.

Our neighbor across from our booth reached out to us right away.  He is a poet from Nepal.  We sent a JANR for him to give his 12 year old daughter who was already interested in Jesus.  He owns a book store in Katmandu and took U Books to place in it.  He will certainly keep in touch with us.  The booth next to him was manned by a Moslem from Kashmir who wanted to let people know Moslems are not terrorists.  We made friends with him and he took Arlene and me to his shop in the cottage industries stands.

I became acquainted with a Sikh man from Delhi who took Arlene and me to old Delhi to the Sikh temple.  It was a wild ride in an auto rickshaw.  We had a meal which is provided to all who come to the temple.  It was reminiscent of our experience with the Sikhs in Barcelona.

Agustin E-mailed a Hindi sampler to all who requested one.  It was the work of Dr. Rajan Chauhan and was very popular.  Agustin set up his computer and ran Chick Montgonery’s "Ascent to Paradise" power point presentation.  It was very popular.  The posters of the universe and our ascent were very intriguing and brought many into the booth for an explanation.  They seemed to have no problem with them.  They liked the explanation of science and religion.

After a successful nine day run we left the book fair.  We all missed the smiling faces and genuine interest in our story of God's revelation to this generation.  On Monday Agustin and Mario left for Mumbai.  Buck, Arlene, and I caught a Deccan plane for Jabalpur to visit with Dr. Rajan and Ivy Chauhan.  The flight was pleasant and the hotel accommodations recommended by Dr. Chauhan were excellent.  They came to visit that afternoon and stayed to enjoy dinner with us.  The next day they came to take us by taxi to their home which was on the outskirts of Jabalpur.  After dropping them off at their home we went on to see a beautiful and fantastic fall they recommended to visit.  We returned to their modest home and Ivey served the delicious Indian meal she had prepared for us.  They showed us a room they had built above their house for Urantia meetings.  Ivey had spent her retirement bonus to accomplish this.

The next morning we went to the airport to catch our plane back to Delhi, but found it had been cancelled with no other planes going out of this small airport.  We scheduled an overnight train to Agra thinking it would be a fun ride.  But we were very wrong.  It was a 12 hour ride with no heat or food.  We arrived at Agra exhausted and starving.  We were able to stay at a hotel long enough to shower and get a meal.  Monkeys played in the trees at our outdoor dining room.  We then went on to see the Taj Mahal as we planned.  That afternoon we traveled by car back to Delhi.  LaSagrita had a room for the three of us and we rested for our return flight the next morning.  We left on Lufthansa the next morning staying overnight in Munich where I slept for 14 hours.

We arrived safely in Denver the next day, February 16.  I parted with my new best traveling friends and returned back to Oklahoma City.  The trip was worth every inconvenience for the joy of meeting the beautiful people of India.  Their smiles will always linger in my mind.