By Salonee Kulkarni
Pune Book Festival is scheduled from 13th December to 21st December 2025. A collaboration between the National Book Trust and the Government of Maharashtra will organise the event. The book festival was started with the idea of inculcating the reading culture within the society. The Festival is scheduled to be organised for the third time at the Fergusson College Campus, Pune.
To celebrate its continuity, a building legacy and active participation, every year, before the main event, an annual event, Pune Reads in Silence, is conducted. This year, was conducted on Tuesday from 11:00 am to 12:00 pm. During the time duration, people from all sections of society are encouraged to read a book of their choice. Participants are expected to take a photo and upload it to the QR code, contributing to the Guinness World Record.
Around 40,000 students attended “Shantata… Punekar Vachat Aahet” ahead of the festival with great enthusiasm. A third-year college student from Fergusson provided his insights on learning from the experience of the annual event to inculcate the habit of reading. He believes it fosters critical thinking and replaces scrolling and the negative impact associated with it. When the annual event commenced, he believed it to be boring, but his ideas about reading changed. He now aims to read books the entire winter and enjoy the delightful experience of sitting and reading. He compared reading to therapy.
To monitor the number of participants, the organisers curated a website where participants had to upload their photos. The curation will be included in the world record books.
Vedant Wable, a BSc Chem student, emphasised that the celebration of the event has facilitated the idea of library lending books beyond the fixed scheduled time. The reading room is operational for 24 hours, and access to fiction books for students has been made available. This was previously restricted. Vedant Wable has borrowed many fictional books.
Shivani Yayal, who learns German as a second language, said the event helped her make new friends and connections with people who share her interests. The conversations sparked engaging dialogue about literature and opened the door for her to books she was previously not exposed to. She hopes that the literature that shaped her could help someone else through the conversations she had.
FC student, Rucha Ghadigaoankar, stated that she was eagerly waiting for the book festival to be organised. The festival serves her an opportunity to buy books at a discounted rate. She enjoys visiting the photo exhibition and wants to learn the art of photography.
The Chief Coordinator of the festival concluded by making an impactful statement about developing critically thinking youngsters through the art of a reading cultural event.