The Sunday Haul

This month’s Literary Review in ‘The Hindu’ of 3/3/13 had an article by Aditya Sudarshan titled ‘The Strange Case of Arun Joshi’ on an Indian writer in English who he calls as the ‘greatest Indian novelist’ who we have forgotten. Arun Joshi is a name I was not aware of till I read the article. For all my reading it is a pity that I still do not have knowledge of several good Indian writers writing in English. Until recently I was aware of only well known writers like RK Narayan, Mulk Raj Anand, Anita Desai and few other writers. After I found and read books by Balraj Khanna, and Chaman Nahal I realized I had missed reading some little known writers who wrote as well as their famous counterparts. So I was pretty excited reading about Arun Joshi, especially about one of his books ‘The Apprentice’ listed in the article. It appears ‘The Apprentice’ is about a young government servant and his descent into corruption which is something I have dealt with in my own novel. I desperately want to read ‘The Apprentice’ but have discovered that the book is out of print.

Luckily for me, last Sunday I found Arun Joshi’s ‘The Foreigner’ at Abids and was quite pleased with myself for having spotted the book. It was a good copy and though I would have gladly paid anything that the seller asked I got the book for only forty rupees. The blurbs at the back of the book say that it is a fantastic book and in fact Kushwant Singh has this to say about ‘The Foreigner’ – ‘One of the most compelling works of fiction I have read for a long time’ which is enough reason for anyone to read it and I am glad I found it. Aditya Sudarshan’s praise for Arun Joshi’s writing made me wish I could find the other four novels by Arun Joshi: ‘The Strange Case of Billy Biswas’ ‘The Labyrinth’ and ‘The City and the River. I will keep an eye for these books at my usual haunts at Abids and the second hand bookstores of Hyderabad. Apart from ‘The Apprentice’ which I am curious to read I also want to find ‘The Survivor’ which is a collection of Arun Joshi’s short stories. I hope I find at least one of these books soon.

The other find of Sunday at Abids was Laurie Lee’s ‘Cider with Rosie’ that I had earlier seen but hadn’t picked up. This Sunday however I bought it since it was a good copy and also did not cost me more than thirty rupees. I am of the opinion that all titles published by Penguin are damn good reads and so since this book too was by Penguin I picked it up.