The Haul and a Book Launch

Last Saturday turned out to be an eventful day on Hyderabad’s literary scene with not one but two book readings that took place. One was the book reading of Angela Saini’s ‘Geek Nation’ that I learnt about only in the afternoon when I happened to glance at the Times of India. The event was sometime in the afternoon and somewhere in Jubilee Hills so there was no way I could attend it though I very much wanted to. The second book reading was one I accidentally walked into in the evening when I landed up at Landmark at Punjagutta to buy gifts for my nephews. I was quite surprised to see the event in progress with Sunil Sethi and Jyotirmaya Sharma on the dais and a copy of ‘The Big Bookshelf’ displayed on the table. I was a bit annoyed that I missed knowing about the event which doesn’t seem to have been publicized anywhere. What added to the annoyance was the fact that I had come in when the event was just winding up.

There’s no better place to find out rather quickly how dumb some of us Hyderabadis are than at an event like a book launch. One of the reasons why I flee such events right after the actual reading or launch is over is to avoid the inevitable question and answer session that follows. There are invariably a bunch of people who ask the sort of questions that make me cringe. Among the crowd at Landmark on Saturday was one middle-aged gentleman who introduced himself as an artist and wanted to know from Sunil Sethi about the employment opportunities for an artist in the media. This at a book launch! Another person who introduced himself as the culture correspondent of a local newspaper asked Sunil Sethi why there were no language writers featured on ‘Just Books’ that Sethi anchors. Sethi told him that ‘Just Books’ was an English language program. Then there was another person who wanted to know about Anna Hazare and it was at this point that I decided to leave and find a hole to bury myself in. I imagine Sunil Sethi and Jyotirmaya Sharma must have been shaking their heads in utter disbelief at the sort of questions that were asked at Hyderabad.

Incidentally, after leaving the event midway I happened to glance at the latest issue of Outlook magazine elsewhere in the store and came across Jyotirmaya Sharma’s column- Hyderabad Diary- on the last page. He writes that politics, astrology, and cinema were what mattered to Hyderabadis. I think he is wrong. Hyderabadis are interested in individual politicians, not politics, Hyderabadis are crazy about movie stars and not cinema as such. I think he also missed out the fact that there is nothing matters more to the Hyderabadi than eating and drinking. One need only look around to see how many restaurants, hotels, small pushcarts, even vendors on bicycles are there in the city dishing out stuff to the hungry Hyderabadi at all times. Then there’s the drink. He doesn’t seem to have noticed that liquor stores in Hyderabad open as early as hotels. At an hour when people in other cities would be getting ready to have their first cup of tea some of us Hyderabadis would have already downed a couple of pegs. That’s Hyderabad, sir.

The Haul
On Sunday at Abids I did not find any book worth buying. I was looking for books by Ted Lewis. I am certain that I had seen ‘Jack Carter’s Law’ sometime back in a heap of books but I was not lucky. But I am going to find one soon. Since maybe I had my eyes open only for Ted Lewis I did not find other books. However, I found the March 28, 2011 issue of ‘The New Yorker’ magazine that had a story by Haruki Murakami titled ‘UFO in Kushiro’ that I read right after reaching home. I had also seen a collection of short stories by Penelope Lively that I did not feel like buying then but now I wish I had picked it up. That was one (and only) dumb thing I did on Sunday. Maybe I will look for the book next Sunday and pick it up if it is still available.


It wasn’t that I went without books the whole week. I finally lay my hands on John Le Carre’s ‘Our Kind of Traitor’ that one of my brothers gave me. It is what I am planning to read right after I finish another gem that I bought yesterday at a second hand bookstore in Nampally. I am glad I made the impromptu decision to dive into a second hand bookstore yesterday afternoon. After I read Raymond Chandler’s high praise for Dashiell Hammett in ‘The Simple Art of Murder’ I was on the lookout for Hammett’s book. Yesterday I found Dashiell Hammett’s ‘The Continental Op’ and got it for only fifty rupees. The lengthy and wonderful introduction by Steven Marcus about Hammett’s life and the influences on his writing is making me want to start reading the book right away.

There are seven stories in ‘The Continental Op’: The Tenth Clew/The Golden Horseshoe/The House in Turk Street/The Girl with the Silver Eyes/The Whosis Kid/The Main Death/ The Farewell Murder. Though I was a bit disappointed that I had not found any title by Ted Lewis I am glad I found Dashiell Hammett’s ‘The Continental Op.’