The Sunday Haul (on 17-08-2025)

For once the weather forecasts by the Met Dept as well as weather-enthusiasts were totally off the mark as it did not rain on the days they said it would rain. I had thought it would rain on Sunday also and in fact prayed it wouldn’t rain in the mornings until afternoon when I would have finished my rounds of the book market there. It happened exactly as I prayed, a rare occurrence in my life prayers getting answered!, as it did not rain until about two in the afternoon. 

It was cloudy though when I started for Abids, stopping at Chikkadpally first to check out the books by the sellers there. I struck gold when I found a hardcover copy of ‘Rebel Sultans’ by Manu S. Pillai, an author whose books I hadn’t read yet but had read his columns. 

I had already read the book a long time back and also have a copy but when I saw the copy of ‘A Bend in the River’ by V.S. Naipaul with a different cover that was too attractive to ignore I bought it. This I found at Chikkadpally with a seller who I notice is always reading from a book and hardly pays attention to those buying his books. I think he is the only seller who reads the books he sells. I got it for sixty rupees. After buying this book I took the bus to Abids. 

Once again, the second time on last Sunday I found another copy of a book I already have but with a different cover that was too attractive to ignore. I saw a copy of ‘Life: A User’s Manual’ by Georges Perec, a copy that was far better than the copy I had bought a couple of years ago. I haven’t yet read it but I hope to read this copy. 

In the same shelf I saw a copy, a nice one in perfect condition, of ‘Ideology & Socialism’ by Andre Beteille whose essays I’ve read in newspapers like The Hindu many times. But this was the first book by Beteille that I found so bought it right away. I got both the above books for three hundred rupees. 

Just before I started for home, I took a last look at a seller where I spotted a bright cover that was too attractive to ignore and picked it up to see what it was. It was a copy of ‘Gendethimma’ by Srikrishna Alanahalli, translated by P.P. Giridhar into English from the original novel in Kannada.  On the back I read that Srikrishna Alanahalli was one of the foremost Navya movement novelists and is second to none in his depiction of rural Karnataka. I couldn’t resist the beautiful cover with a drawing by Vaikuntam (Thota Vaikuntam?) and also the fact that I wanted to read it so I bought it. I got it for only thirty rupees. 

The Sunday Haul (on 10-08-2025)

 

Last week it had been raining cats and dogs in Hyderabad causing much inconvenience to traffic and also me because I was worried the rain might continue to Sunday too and that I would not be able to go to Abids. Luckily it did not rain at all last Sunday though it was cloudy but no sign of rain. Praying it would not rain till afternoon when I usually finish my trip to Abids I left a little early. First I got to Chikkadpally to check out the books with the few sellers who lay out their books on the pavement.

With one seller I saw a beautiful copy of ‘The Case for India’ by Will Durant, a hardcover that was published by Strand Book Store, Mumbai and was a limited-edition copy. I loved the cover with the title in light yellow leaping at the eye of the beholder. It was slightly pricey at a hundred and fifty rupees that I did not mind paying since I have seen copies, scores of them, of ‘The Story of Philosophy’ at Abids and in second-hand bookstores in Hyderabad. This was an entirely new title by Will Durant that I was not aware of so I bought it. 

Ever since I visited Kohima in Nagaland and also Itanagar in Arunachal Pradesh I have been smitten by the North East and its people. So, when I saw a copy of ‘A Resurgent Northeast: Narratives of Change’ by Ashish Kundra with the cover with pictures of three tribal men of one of the tribes in the North East I bought it right away. After buying these two books at Chikkadpally I started for Abids hoping I would not find anything interesting. 

I had read about ‘Gift from the Sea’ by Anne Morrow Lindbergh sometime back as being a good book about but never found it anywhere. Last Sunday I picked up a beautiful almost new copy of this title that I got for only twenty rupees. I wonder if it is something like ‘A Year by the Sea’ by Joan Anderson. 

I’ve never read anything by Colin McInnes though I saw a lot of his novels at Abids. But this title I found was a collection of excerpts from his stories and novels including some essays. I saw a copy of ‘Absolute MacInnes’ edited by Tony Gould in a heap of Rs.50 books and bought it. 

Earlier in previous visits I had seen copies of ‘Between the Lines’ by Kuldip Nayar, a veteran journalist in India known for his political insights into major developments. Last Sunday I saw an almost brand new copy of ‘Between the Lines’ and bought it without a second thought, and surprisingly the seller wanted only a hundred rupees for this copy. 

The Sunday Haul (on 03-08-2025)

 

It was a partly sunny, partly cloudy in Hyderabad last Sunday when I set out for Abids. As usual I stopped at Chikkadpally before proceeding to Abids. The first find of Sunday was a nice copy of ‘Islam’ by Karen Armstrong. I had first found her ‘The Spiral Staircase’, her memoir of her life as a nun while very young and leaving the convent sort of disillusioned. I also have read her ‘Twelve Ways to a Compassionate Life’ sometime back. I got ‘Islam’ for a hundred rupees. Afterwards I got into a bus to Koti and thence to Abids. 

I had seen a copy of a book of stories in Hindi by Vijay Dhan Dhetha with a seller near the GPO but the seller had asked for a price I wasn’t willing to pay and he wasn’t willing to reduce the price, asking me to quote another amount. I was in no mood to play games with him and so left without buying it. 

I was lucky to spot a nice small sized book with ‘Cultural Action for Freedom’ by Paulo Friere with an attractive cover that drew my eye to it. I had earlier found and also read ‘Pedagogy of the Oppressed’ by Paulo Friere, and so this new title I wanted to read also. The seller asked for just thirty rupees for it that I was glad to pay. 

Somehow I feel my English isn’t so good and that I have to improve it by whatever means. So I buy books on grammar, usage, style and so on whenever I spot such titles. Last Sunday I came across a nice copy of ‘English Blues’ published by New Indian Express that I seem to have bought long time back and since I wasn’t sure about it I picked it up for thirty rupees. 

I had been seeing this copy of ‘The Moon by Whale Light’ by Diane Ackerman with a seller since the past few Sundays and did not feel like buying it though I love to read writing on nature. When I read in the inside page that Diane Ackerman was a staff writer at The New Yorker and had also written a few best-selling books about nature I bought it. 

A long back I had read about Krupabai Sattianadhan, a Brahmin woman whose parents were among the first to be converted to Christianity sometime in the 1850s or so. I wanted to read about her but couldn’t find much anywhere. Last Sunday I spotted a copy of ‘Kamala: The Story of a Hindu Child-Wife’ by Krupabai Satthianadhan and bought it. 

More than a decade ago I picked up a copy of ‘Monkey Grip’ by Helen Garner after having seen it with the same seller for many weeks. I hadn’t heard of the title or Helen Garner so I hesitated though it was a Penguin book. But after I bought it and read it soon after ‘Monkey Grip’ became one of my favorite novels. Last Sunday I spotted another copy with the same cover and bought it right away. 

Arms loaded with six books and on the way home when I stopped at a seller and saw a copy of‘The Rinehart Reader’ by Jeff Rackham & Beverly J. Slaughter. This was a thick volume, one of those books that colleges in the United States recommend to their students to improve their reading and writing skills. I had bought a few such book in the past because they contain many good stories and essays by well-known writers, to illustrate the fundamentals of writing short stories and essays. In one such book I found a short story that I had been looking for everywhere. 

Then right next to it was a copy of ‘The World and Africa’ by W.E. Burghardt Du Bois, a writer whose books I keep reading about on social media where people post the covers of his books. I had to buy it because it was my first du Bois title and also that it was about Africa, a place I never tire of reading about. These two titles cost me three hundred rupees!

The Sunday Haul (27-07-2025)

 

Yesterday this blog completed 18 years. This is the first post of the nineteenth year of this blog. 

After almost more than ten days of gloomy weather with cloudy skies and intermittent heavy rain it was a glorious morning on Sunday in Hyderabad with clear skies and the sun driving away all the black moods. Sunny and bright it may have been but the wind was blowing like the devil flipping the covers off the books. 

The first find was at Chikkadpally with the seller at the end the guy who is always reading one of his own books and doesn’t even look at who’s searching among his books. I found a copy of ‘Brothers in Zinc’ by Svetlana Alexeivich, a Penguin title. Many years ago, I had found a Svetlana Alexeivich title but somehow I did not buy it. So, finding this title was satisfying. I got it for a hundred rupees. 

The next find was at Abids, a copy of ‘Talisman’ by Tirumavalavan, another addition to the growing list of Dalit literature. Tirumaavalavan is the founder of VCK, a political party in Tamil Nadu. I bought this book for Rs.80. Someday I am going to read this book with all other titles by Dalit writers on casteism, and also those by others. 

The Sunday Haul (0n 20-07-2025)

I was in a far better mood last Sunday the anxiety I had the previous fortnight having abated. So it was with a lot of expectation and excitement I left for Abids but not before stopping at Chikkadpally to look at the books there. I had seen a nice hardcover copy of ‘The World of Nagaraj’ by RK Narayan with one seller at Chikkadpally the previous Sunday but hesitated to buy it. It was a first edition published by Heinemann, London in 1990. I did not buy it right away but last Sunday I finally picked it up. There is some damage one the top right of the dust jacket and inside in ballpoint writing was written G. Gopala Krishna Rao, 12.7.1991, New Delhi on one of the inside pages. 

With the same seller I saw a copy of ‘The Art of Rhetoric’ by Aristotle with a beautiful cover that I bought right away because I had not seen this title anywhere before. I got this too for a hundred rupees though I have no idea when I will read it. 

Down the road was another seller who usually has a large collection of books out of which sometimes I’ve picked up some wonderful titles in the past. Last Sunday I saw a copy of ‘The Time of the Hero’ by Mario Vargas Llosa that had a wonderful cover that I bought right away. 

Since I had already bought three titles at Chikkadpally I did not want to buy any more books at Abids. I met my friend Srinivas and later Srivatsan joined. We had a long chat about books, movies, studies, and so on. It was already half past one and I thought I’d do one final round before leaving for home. I saw a crime fiction title- ‘Laidlaw’ by William McIlvanney that seemed good so I bought it. 

‘A moment after I bought ‘Laidlaw’ I spotted another title with only the words ‘travel book’ on the cover I could see. Intrigued I pulled it out and read the complete title – ‘At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig’ by John Gimlette. I do not have a single travel book about South America except ‘In Patagonia’ by Bruce Chatwin so I was excited to read that this title was about travel in Paraguay. I got it for only fifty rupees. 

The Sunday Haul (on 13-07-2025)

 A recent personal development put me in low moods last week and I wasn’t in the mood to go to Abids last Sunday. However, I went hoping I would find something that would give me hope and also cheer me up. Sadly, I found nothing of that sort but found a copy of ‘The Wretched of the Earth’ by Frantz Fanon with a striking cover. Sometime back I had found two copies of the same title and with this I now have three copies of the same title. 

I had seen the Bloomsbury 2021 Catalogue but did not pick it up since some of the pages seemed to be damaged by moisture. Back home I felt I should have taken it since I do not have any catalogue by any publisher. Maybe next Sunday I will buy it if it is still around at the same place I saw it last Sunday. 

The Sunday Haul (on 06-07-2025)

 

The previous Sunday I had been late to Abids and so did not have the time to take a leisurely look at the books on the pavements at Abids. Last Sunday, however, I was there before noon but most of the sellers had not set up shop due to Muharram. Out of the few who were present I found three titles that seemed interesting to me. 

The first book I picked up was a nice copy of ‘Indira Gandhi’ by Pupul Jayakar that I had been seeing with a seller since the last couple of weeks. I got it for hundred rupees.

All the titles on the Palestine issue were different ones and last Sunday I found a different title by someone who claimed to be a neutral person, neither a Jew nor a Palestinian. I found a nice copy of ‘Why Blame Israel?’ by Neill Lochery that I got for two hundred rupees. This is another title on the Middle East that I plan to read together with the other titles I have sometime in the coming months.

There were a few additions to the stock of books with a seller in a lane that looked old hardcover titles with the jackets missing. In that pile I spotted a copy with this title on the spine ‘Autobiography- Neville Cardus’. I am not very interested in cricket but know enough that Neville Cardus was a cricket writer and quite famous. So I bought it for a hundred rupees. 

On the way back home I stopped to look at the pile of books that are almost new that a seller keeps on a kind of low bench. I spotted a copy of ‘Blood & Sand’ by Frank Gardner, another memoir by a journalist who had covered the Middle East among other places. I got it for only fifty rupees. 

Somehow it did not seem enough and I felt restless as I hadn’t been to Chikkadpally to look at the titles the couple of sellers there put up for sale. So, in the afternoon I went and picked up a collection of literary essays by a Telugu writer. It was a slim, paperback copy of ‘Sahitya Darshini’ by Kolakaluri Enoch. I got it for thirty rupees only. 

The Sunday Haul (on 29-06-2025)

I had left home early to be at a meeting of fountain pen lovers that takes place every month. I was added to their WhatsApp group by someone I know and days later I read the message about the monthly meeting. The meeting was at 10.30 am in Nexcity near the Sattva Knowledge city. I was surprised at that wonderful place where we could sit and discuss. I was the first to arrive and later joined by a motley groups of people carrying bags filled with exotic and beautiful fountain pens. They showed around their fountain pens and also the bottles of ink they had, scribbling on special notebooks to test the nibs and the color of the inks. I had not taken my collection except one fountain pen so I just looked at the fountain pens they had. But since it was getting late for my Abids hours I left after an hour.

I reached Abids quite late, sometime after one in the afternoon. I found only one book which was a nice copy of ‘Everything is Broken: Life Inside Burma’ by Emma Larkin. Emma Larkin is a writer who made several trips to Burma and this book is an account of what she saw there in the aftermath of a cyclone that hit the country in 2008.

A Lucky Haul’

A couple of Sundays back having finished the browsing on the pavements at Abids I sauntered to the Best Books store down the road. I had found two titles outside on the pavement in front of the store there: a collection edited by John Pilger and a book on Africa that I bought. When I went inside the store to pay for them, I spotted the cover of a book I had read about much on social media but had not expected to find. It was the bright and attractive cover of ‘The Tale of Genji’ by Murasaki Shikibu. I took it out for a closer look and saw that it was a  translation by Royall Tyler and the copy was a Penguin Classics Deluxe edition. I did not want to buy it right away though I felt I had to buy it at any cost. I paid a small advance and told the seller to keep it aside and that I would come later and pay the rest before collecting the copy. 

Sometime last week I rushed to Best Books and collected the copy of ‘Tale of Genji’ that is thicker than a brick and seems to weight more than one kilo! I don’t know when I will get to read this tome running into almost 1200 pages. But I sure am very pleased I found this wonderful book. 

The Sunday Haul (on 15-06-2025)

 Yet another Sunday and yet another haul of five books at Abids. It is becoming harder for me to stop myself from buying books at Abids and also online where I seem to buying more books than at Abids. Last Sunday I was at Abids at my usual time around half past eleven in the morning. 

A few minutes after I reached the first haul was a copy of a book I already have on my bookshelf, and that I had found long back. The copy I saw last Sunday was a good one and since it was coming at only fifty rupees I decided to buy it and in it went into the haul. It was a copy of ‘The Jaguar Smile’ by Salman Rushdie that was a Picador title. 

Since I buy regularly from many of the sellers at Abids some of them stop me and ask me to take a look at some of the books they have kept in a sack. One of the sellers did just that last Sunday and the book I took out from the sack was a nice and almost new copy of ‘Falling off the Map’ by Pico Iyer. I think I have three or four copies of this book with different titles, and only last week I had bought a copy online just because I did not have a copy with that cover. So, I wasn’t exactly inclined to buy the copy from the sack I bought it anyway since I did not want to disappoint the seller. I got it for fifty rupees only. 

 

The next two finds were poetry titles. One was a copy of ‘Ten Twentieth-Century Indian Poets’ edited by R. Parthasarathy, a beautiful copy in very good condition. It is a collection of a couple of poems by some well-known Indian poets like Nissim Ezekiel, Kamala Das, Arun Kolatkar, Shiv K. Kumar, Jayanta Mahapatra, Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, R. Parthasarathy, Gieve Patel, A.K. Ramanujam, and finally Keki.N. Daruwalla. 

Incidentally the next find was another collection of poetry- Under Orion by Keki N. Daruwalla that I got for only thirty rupees. I guess it is not so easily available and I felt glad I found it since I’ve been reading his poetry since I was in junior college. 

Mohan Rakesh is another Hindi writer I had been trying to find but I got nowhere in my search for his books in Hindi. Instead, last Sunday just under the copy of Keki N. Daruwalla’s ‘Under Orion’ was nestled the copy of ‘Another Life and Other Stories’ by Mohan Rakesh. It is a collection of these eleven stories translated into English: Another Life; A Living; Safety Pin; City Asleep; The Glass Tank; Married Women; Savourless Sins; The Man and the Wall; The Wound; The Stranger; and Animals and ‘Animals’.