Voice of Buddha: The world of Baba Saheb Dr B R Ambedkar stall in Chennai book fair

CHENNAI: Bibliophiles visiting stall no.488 (Voice of Buddha :The world of Baba Saheb Dr B R Ambedkar) in The Chennai book fair are curious to see Buddha, Che Guevara and Karl Marx.

The owner of Voice of Buddha publications, P Baktha Vatsalam shares the life of Dr B R Ambedkar with interest.

He shares how he named his son Karl Marx and grandchildren as Buddha and Che Siddharthan. The visitors in the stalls are curious to see the characters from the social science books together in the book stall.

The entire books which are written by Ambedkar or books which other authors wrote about Ambedkar are available in the stall.

Around 100 books out of which 70 volumes of books related to Ambedkar, apart from which books of Iyothee Thass, Karl Marx and Periyar are also available in the stall. The books in the stalls are in Tamil.

P Baktha Valsalam's son, Karl Marx created Voice of Buddha as a publishing house and has published books related to Ambedkar's speeches in the constituent assembly.

Also waiting for a visa, a book on Ambedkar's personal experiences related to untouchability also has been published.

"The books which we focus on are on Buddhism, Marxism, Ambedkar and Periyar. Out of the 70 books related to Ambedkar 22 books are written by himself. His books were mainly chosen as his ideologies could not be compared with anyone else.

The main attraction in the stall is the books and pictures of Ambedkar which catch the glimpses of book lovers visiting the stall.

Baktha shares that the reason behind choosing these books for sale was mainly due to the humiliations from his childhood which he faced and continues to face.

He expresses that even after all the reforms casteism still prevails in India without any change. Baktha strongly follows Buddhism which made him to name his family members the names which are related to Lord Buddha.