The Sunday Haul- A Mag and a Book

In the twenty five years of my book hunting at Abids I have never been as surprised as I was this Sunday. A couple of weeks back I had found an imported magazine (Outside) of the current month- August 2008. I had thought it was the ultimate but this Sunday I found the September 2008 issue of ‘Arena’ magazine. It wasn’t even September yesterday, the 31st of August which means we were still in August. But the more-than-latest issue of Arena had already made its way to Abids.

It is always a wonder to me how these guys manage to lay their hands on such magazines. I had no alternative but to pick up the magazine . I paid thirty rupees for it because the guy used a special tactic on me. He knew I was a regular and that I don’t much bargain for anything. So when I picked up the magazine I asked him how much he was asking for the magazine. He said,’ What should I tell you? You are a regular here. Pay whatever you want though I’d quote fifty rupees for others.’ Thus he cleverly put me in a position where I could neither put back the magazine nor pay him less than what the magazine was really worth on the pavement. I wouldn’t have paid him more than twenty rupees for it but I shelled out an extra ten rupees. These guys can be very, very clever.

The second find of the day was Mukul Kesavan’s ‘Secular Common Sense’ which was a slim book of essays that put me back by twenty rupees. I was intrigued by another title on the back cover- The Necessity of Corruption by Shiv Vishvanathan. Unfortunately, being a government employee myself, I am a reluctant witness to this phenomenon at close quarters almost on a daily basis, and have an idea why it happens. But the book was presenting a totally different angle to it though I can understand (but not accept) why some people think corruption in necessary. I have to be on the lookout for this book now to know more about it.