New Delhi: What happens when you sell good books at an unbelievable 25 rupees each? A near-stampede, such as the one at a garage sale by HarperCollins in the national capital region.
Hundreds of people, including children and wheelchair users, thronged the gates at the company's warehouse in Faridabad on Friday, even before the two-day sale began.
In the oppressive Delhi summer heat, two women reportedly fainted inside the building, while another ended up vomitting on the road. Cries of "don’t push, don’t push’" rang out every once in a while outside the three-foot wide gate.
“What nonsense is this! I’m not putting myself through this. I can buy books somewhere else," said a harried woman exiting the warehouse premises.
“We’ve been standing here for three hours and still couldn’t buy a single book, the crowd-control has been very poor," said BS Mathur, who had given up on buying books, and was instead fetching water for the people outside who had fallen ill.
The organizers were just as hassled. “We didn’t expect 3000 people to turn up on a weekday! This is thrice the number we were prepared for. Please cooperate with us, we’re doing our best," said a HarperCollins employee as he tried to placate the disappointed people.
The big turnout was because a Facebook post on the garage sale, offering paperbacks for Rs 40 and coffee-table books at Rs 100, went viral two weeks ago.
“It’s all because of Facebook. The news of this sale spread uncontrollably. I’ve been getting calls from outside Delhi, outside the country even. My number was shared on Facebook without my permission," said Arvind Gupta, the acting organiser of the sale.
A few hours into the sale, the best ones were already taken. The ones who had queued up earliest carried home suitcases filled with books, some of them even announcing they would come back for a second round.
It was also a win-win for the auto drivers who were ferrying people between the Mehwla Mahrajpur Metro and the HC garage.
“I’ve already earned Rs 2000 since this morning, thanks to the book sale," said an auto driver, grinning.
Day two of the sale was later called off by the organisers citing the "óverhwhelming response" of the opening day as reason.
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