Friday Double Post-2. The Sunday Haul

Browsing for books at the second hand book market in Abids isn’t the same thing as buying books at regular book stores. For one thing you will never know what you will find in the heaps of books arranged on the pavements at Abids on Sundays. Lying underneath could be the title that you have been looking for all along or you might come across the title that could change your life forever. Then there is the joy of shopping in the open, moving from seller to seller, looking at the titles on sale, flipping through the pages, and even reading a passage or two before deciding to buy the book. This is something now impossible to do in a regular bookstore where the books nowadays are encased in plastic wrapping. Then there is the ultimate shopping experience- bargaining. Nowhere can you bargain hard for the book you want to buy, not even in a second hand bookstore, except at Abids. Only at Abids in Hyderabad can you come home with a good title at dirt cheap prices.

The Sunday before last Sunday I couldn’t make it to Abids because the ‘Nilam’ cyclone not yet left the State. I had to be in the office all day and missed my usual Sunday routine entirely. So it was with a lot of eagerness that I set out for Abids though I did not expect to find many sellers because Diwali was only two days away. The regular shops would be open for the Diwali shoppers which meant there wouldn’t be space for the second hand book sellers to set up shop. But last Sunday I found my first book even before I got to Abids. At Chikkadpally I found Victor E. Frankl’s ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’ which was a book some of my friends had told me about. I had not evinced much interest in reading it when I first heard of the book maybe because of the serious sounding title. But when I saw the actual book I did not think twice before buying it for fifty rupees. I was glad because it was in good condition and I had got it pretty cheap. Later at Abids though I did not find anything interesting Shrikant spotted and picked up George Orwell’s ‘Homage to Catalonia’ that I borrowed from him and which I am currently reading.

The same day in the evening I checked out Crossword at GVK One and also at Walden in Begumpet but couldn’t find Sidin Vadukut’s ‘Who Let the Dork Out’ that I had been planning to buy ever since I read that it had been launched. On Friday I had planned to read it in the plane on way to Tirupati but I got to the airport too late and had no time to check the bookstore at the Shamshabad airport. Anyway, on Monday evening I was returning from yet another high level meeting and since I was near Landmark at Somajiguda I went in. Luckily I could find the book and got quite a thrill seeing on the back cover a blurb by Hari. I read just the acknowledgements page and the first paragraph in the first chapter which was enough to convince me that ‘Who Let the Dork Out’ by Sidin Vadukut could be the crowning glory in the Dork trilogy. I’ve kept it aside to read it shortly after I finish the books I am currently reading so you have to wait a while for the review.