The Sunday Haul - 3 Magazines

On Sunday, my modest but growing collection of Condé Nast Traveller magazines got a quantum jump with the addition of three issues. It looks like I am destined to be a non-paying subscriber of this wonderful magazine. There were actually six magazines on the pavement but I picked up only three. I was glad I did not pick up all the six for a reason I will come to shortly. I got the three magazines for only fifty rupees which was quite a bargain. Since I had decided not to buy books for a while I thought it was okay to splurge on magazines hence the magazine haul.

Maybe I would have picked up a book on Sunday at Abids but I was there only for a very short time, about thirty minutes to be exact. I was with a friend the whole day so missed out on the trip to Abids. If I had come in the morning I would have looked carefully and no doubt, would have found something worth picking up. I am wondering how long I will hold out without buying a book. There are fifty more Sundays to go through.

Condé Nast Traveller is for those who take their travel and holidays in beautiful, exotic places seriously. For government types like me it gets a bit too much, all that luxury and opulence. However it is fun to read about it all though I may not ever go to any place described in the magazine.

Of the three Condé Nast Traveller issues one was of December 2008 (263 pages) and the other two were the November 2008 (268 pages) and September 2008 (204 pages) issues. It would take me a long time to read them but I flipped through the three issues and also read a few interesting articles. The December 2008 issue has articles by five well known travel writers on senses. I liked the one by Rory Maclean on ‘Hearing’, a vendor's cry in Burma that remained in the writer’s memory. The article on the outback in Australia promises to be great though it is too lengthy.

The September 2008 issue had a lengthy, evocative article on Havana by Robert McCrum, author of ‘My Year Off’. Another piece in the same issue gave me an idea for an article I felt I can do without trying too hard. The article was ‘25 Reasons to Go to Barcelona’ and my idea was for an article titled ‘100 Reasons Not to Go to Hyderabad’, the first of which, needless to say will be- potholes. Someday I am going to do the article. Watch this space.

But my joy on finding my favorite magazine was short lived soon as I started flipping through the issues. I noticed that someone had torn off a few pages in each magazine- lists of hotels and such useful information. I felt sad but not angry. It is one price that one has to pay picking up second hand stuff cheap. The only consolation was that I got a clue as to where these magazines were coming from. I found a piece of hotel stationery with the name of the hotel on it. I’m not going to name it but the hotel is on Banjara Hills.