New Delhi: It was a festival of a different kind. Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) professors on Tuesday gave away 600 books for a nominal sum. The students, of course, had a whale of a time! Although most of the books were of the academic kind, there were many on a range of subjects such as apartheid, poetry, history, comic strips and art besides novels and magazines.

Organised by the school of IT, the books were lapped up by the students in no time.

Abhishek Kumar, a PhD student of the department of biotechnology, said he rushed to the school of IT when he saw his friends coming to the class with armful of books.

"It's quite strange that I didn't come to know about the fest, otherwise I could have got more books," said Kumar, holding three books on ecosystem in his hand and rummaging through the shelves for more.

"But I am happy with what I got. These books cost no less than Rs.300-500 each and here I got all the three of them at a nominal price", he added.

Ram Ramaswamy, professor of physics in the school of IT and one of the three professors who contributed their books to the fest, said that this would become a regular affair from now on.

"We have so many books in our homes which we have not read for ages, books which we no longer require or may consider as a bad buy. Why let them go waste? Three of us (professors) put up these 600 books for the cull fest and they simply disappeared from the shelves in two hours," Ramaswamy told.

"The festival is the first of its kind in JNU and we hope to make it a regular affair", he added.

Anshika Gupta, a student doing her masters in literature and a self-confessed 'book worm', said that more people should emulate this festival.

"It's a wonderful thing to do. We all have so many books lying in our homes untouched and unread for years… what better way to bring them back to life than by letting someone else read them?

"I have picked up some novels, magazines and a book on poetry from the fest on Tuesday. The amazing thing was that they were priced at as low as Rs.20-50 each. Next time they do this, I will probably put up some of my old books for it as well", said Gupta, while typing a message to her friend to come to the fest.

"Not only that, some of the books are as old as 50 years… they can be quite a treasure," added her friend Harsh.

The festival, which was on for just three hours, had just one rule - not more than five books per person. IANS