India, Jan. 11 -- For booklovers, it's that time of the year when every road leads to the much-awaited destination -- the Capital 's World Book Fair (WBF) . The commotion, the crowds. The maze upon maze of madness. The taking 'cover' in crammed craziness. The adventure of getting lost in the maze, only to find a treasure that does amaze. Navigating the labyrinthine alleys, blinking and boasting billboards that scream book biz names big to small and cram stall upon stall, is not without the customary trip down memory lane. Small can be childhood's big. Even the modest-sized book fair that used to come to town was for us a big treat. Sprawled across the Sector 17 Parade Ground, it was certainly no match for the spectacle that the WBF is. But it brought us much-awaited stalls stocked with books that were not so easily to be found otherwise, at bookstores or neighbourhood libraries. The Russian and French stalls to Oriental literature segments. That mini book fair was girlhood's window to the world. That was then as global as it gets. It was there where the world's treasures were found and fingered. Such as Nikolai Gogol's classics or Anton Chekhov's storybook about a Russian dog named "Kashtanka''. Another favourite stall was the one stocking piles of mythological fables, the Amar Chitra Kathas. That there are book fairs beyond, bigger and better than this, was borne out later by adulthood's adventures. A dear friend once cheerfully boasted that her debut book had the incredible luck of being spotted by a global publisher at the Frankfurt Book Fair. That's as big as it gets! The book business has undoubtedly been growing bigger, bolder and busier. The 2026 edition of the WBF aspires to be better and bigger also in terms of footfalls and footprints. As part of mapping a wider global presence, it will be boasting stalls from all corners of the globe --- Argentina to Iran, Russia to Lithuania, Japan to Poland. The Guest of Honour country this time is Qatar and the Focus country, Spain. It's time out too for tribes that look busier than bees or bombastic book fair babudom. Book influencers on a trip to air inflated vanities and inflate follower count. Wannabe book bloggers in a balancing act -- tottering with copies of Booker-winning "Flesh" even as their own flesh cringes in too tall a Jimmy Choo. Podcasters pottering to procure sound bytes from the Who's Who or a Van Chan Hu. Reel ki Raanis tripping with tomes upon toes in collision course with their stilettos. So far so good. But the million-dollar question is -- are the footfalls and footprints fashioning a wider reading habit, too. Bigger and bolder, yes, but is the book culture narrative also getting better and broader? Or is the fair more a market-mounted blitzkrieg? Are the bigger numbers translating into bigger buyings of books? Or for many a visitor, is the WBF merely about a selfie standee, a fleeting Reel moment, or just about Instagrammers' status update-ism? The curious case of Reel-ing between the lines....