A Haul of Penguins

There are a lot of books on India and Indians out there on the bookshelves, written by Indians and others. Of these I have a few on my own bookshelf like Pavan K Varma’s ‘Being Indian,’ Sunil Khilnani’s ‘The Idea of India’, Naipaul’s ‘An Area of Darkness’ and ‘A Million Mutinies Now,’ Mark Tully’s ‘No Full Stops in India,’ and books by otherwriters. I have managed to read only the books by Naipaul and Mark Tully. It is not enough to know superficially about India but one needs to know about the history, culture and everything else required to understand the country and the countrymen. The more number of such books one reads the more you realize how little you know about the country. But it requires a different frame of mind to read such books and understand what they have to say.

Anyway, the previous Sunday I had seen four books that I wanted to buy but could not for some reason. I was relieved that I found all the books except one book intact at the seller at Chikkadpally this Sunday. Only ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’ was gone which was okay since I had already read it long back. Of the remaining three books I picked up only two- ‘The Argumentative Indian’ by Amartya Sen and Shashi Tharoor’s ‘India; From Midnight to the Millenium.’ It was a tough bargain with the seller but I gave up and paid what he asked for- a hundred and fifty rupees for each book. It meant that I had to leave alone Amartya Sen’s ‘Poverty and Famine’ which looked the sort of book with a lot of tables and statistics, something which is difficult for me to understand.

After spending two and hundred and fifty rupees on just two books I did not expect to buy any more books later at Abids. However, having developed a sort of nose for good crime fiction (mostly due to luck) I’m still picking up good enough titles. When I saw Sarah Dunant’s ‘Birth Marks’ I picked it up for two reasons- it was a Penguin title and I could get it for only twenty rupees only. I hope it turns out to be as good as another random title that I had picked up the other Sunday- Jake Arnott’s ‘truecrime’ that I’ve already finished reading and plan to write a review about one of these days.

The next find was a book that I almost did not pick up though it was a title on my ‘To Buy’ list. I saw Eric Newby’s ‘A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush’ at one of the sellers who asked eighty rupees for it. I showed him a sticker on it that had Rs 90 written in pencil and asked him how he could ask eighty rupees for it. He then turned over the book and showed me the price in pounds ($ 7.95) at the back and said that was the real price. I asked for thirty rupees but he wanted nothing less than forty rupees. By then I had decided not to go beyond thirty rupees even if meant losing the book to someone else. Ultimately he did not agree to my price and I walked off but not without regret at being too stubborn.

Later in the afternoon I realized I could not afford not to have the book and so rushed to Abids. Luckily the book was still at the same spot where I had seen it in the morning. I picked it up at forty rupees consoling myself that the book was worth much more than that and returned home feeling very glad. Curiously enough, after I put the Sunday’s haul on the table at home I noticed that all four of the titles I were Penguin titles.