Record breaking sale of Rs 38,000 worth Gandhi literature

Mumbai, Oct 3 (UNI) The Exhibition-cum-sale of books on Mahatma Gandhi organised by Mumbai Sarvodaya Mandal and Gandhi Book Centre which began yesterday to mark the Mahatma's birth anniversary has posted a record breaking sale of 2,000 books worth Rs 38,000 on the very first day of the sale.

A release issued here today said the Autobiography of Gandhi in English and Marathi were the most sold. As many as 62 five book sets of ''The selected works of Mahatma Gandhi'' (English) were also sold on the first day.

Usually, Gandhi Book Centre sees a monthly sale of around Rs 1.5 lakh, which in the month of September jumped to a whopping Rs 5.12 lakh - a record in the last 24 years.

TRK Somaiya, programme convenor of the Bombay Sarvodaya Mandal says that this phenomenon seems to be the result of the curiousity generated by the film 'Lage Raho Munnabhai' amongst the younger generation to know more about 'Gandhigiri', as the buyers were mainly youngsters below the age of 30 years.

He said the exhibition-cum-sale of 300 titles of Gandhiji's works is on at the Gandhi Book Centre in Nana Chowk upto October 11 between 1100 hrs and 2000 hrs where the books are sold at 50 per cent discount.

The titles include subjects like Politics, Religion, Economics, Education, Constructive Work, Non-Violence, Peace, Conflict resolution and Social change in English, Hindi, Marathi, Gujarathi and some South Indian languages.

Sale of ''Autobiography of Gandhi'' at Eros Theatre which is also showing Lage Raho Munnabhai is also getting a tremendous rseponse, Mr Somaiya said. More than 100 copies are sold every day at discounted rate of Rs 20.

He said a special offer on a set of five important books on Gandhiji - 'selected works of Mahatma Gandhi' of 1,500 pages which is in a gift box will be sold only for Rs 75 and 'An Autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi' for Rs 15 only.

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