The Sunday Haul- Cops, Legislators and Books

Those who don’t really know much about cops have this impression, falsely portrayed in countless Indian movies, that cops are bumbling and incompetent people who cannot even read to save their lives. Nine out of ten people have this impression. But my impression is something else. One of my closest friends is a cop who is a voracious reader. Back when I was working in this cop outfit I used to meet a lot of cops who were bookworms. Every other cop I met seemed to read a lot. For a long time I thought I was the only person who read too many books until the day I met a top cop. He had not only read most of the writers I knew but also told me about new writers I had not even heard of. The truth is cops of officer rank read while the lower cadres don’t. So it does not come as a surprise when I see cops in their civil dress picking up books at Abids.

It is quite easy to tell a cop from the others. In the city, most top cops go around with a flunkey dressed in a safari suit following them. There was one such cop at Abids last Sunday picking up books on socialism. He picked up the books and handed them to the flunkey who put them in the jeep. Of course, he paid but I did not get to see the titles of the books.

There was another person on the same day going around with a burly person wearing a safari suit and sneakers following him. He did not look like a top cop. Later I came to know that he was an MLA. It made me happy that there are legislators in our midst who actually read books. He too was picking up books by the armfuls and handing them to his guard who took them and dumped them in the vehicle. He bought enough books to last his five year term I guess. But I bought only two books and a magazine last Sunday.

The first book was Robert Ferrigno’s ‘The Horse Latitudes’ that had a blurb by Elmore Leonard on the cover- ‘An Awesomely Good Writer’ so I picked it up without a second thought. When Elmore Leonard calls another writer an awesomely good writer one doesn’t pass it. The other book I bought was by Elmore Leonard himself, which ‘Touch’ and lay in a heap of books selling for twenty bucks. This was my second copy of the book. In January I had found a hardcover copy of the same title. It isn’t the usual crime thriller and deviates from Elmore Leonard’s usual pattern of novels.

The other find of the day was something very expected. I found the December 2009 issue of ‘Condé Nast Traveler’ that was in good condition. This issue has a dream list of 24 unforgettable experiences and needless to say India is nowhere on the list. There’s also a lengthy feature about Palermo, African safaris, on St.Croix in the Caribbean and one interesting feature about etiquette in Russia.

Since the summer holidays have begun for some schools my kid too tagged along with me to Abids looking for books of ‘X-Men’ to add to his growing collection of such books. Boys aged 6-13 seem to be fascinated by ‘X-Men’ for my kind sits glued to the TV sometimes when their show is on. Till recently it was ‘Ben Ten’ but now it is Wolverine, X-Men and the like. He was disappointed though but settled for a ‘Pokemon’ book.