The Dehra Dun Haul

Last month, immediately after the Uttarakhand floods, we (a team of 34) were dispatched to Uttarakhand for rescue and coordination. At least three thousand pilgrims from our State were stranded somewhere in Uttarakhand. For nearly twelve days I was there on that grim mission attending to calls from hysterical relatives asking for information about their missing relatives. There was the constant stream of news about bodies being found and about the difficulties being faced by those stranded in remote and inhospitable places. What was difficult for me was to listen to the people telling their harrowing tales of death, destruction, and tragedy that cannot be imagined. It took a toll on me and I had nothing to distract my mind save for books. I had taken along only one book and needed more books.

The day after I landed at Dehra Dun I set out from the hotel early in the morning for a walk. A few minutes into the walk I was pleasantly surprised to see a board announcing a book sale by Max Books of Mumbai above a store on the main road. I decided I would drop in there sometime in the evening. However it wasn’t until three days later that I got the time to check the sale out. I found Ryszard Kapuscinski’s ‘The Shadow of the Sun’ on the first visit and did not hesitate to buy it though the price was Rs 195. I had just then learnt that I may have to stay back for quite some time. I had not brought any books except John Buchan’s ‘Thirty Nine Steps.’ Since I needed reading material I bought it. The next find was Jean Rhy’s ‘Tigers are Better Looking’ which is a collection of her short stories. This was a slim book and I bought it for Rs 75. That was the haul on the first visit.

A couple of days later I went to the sale again and found another interesting book by one of my favourite authors- Elmore Leonard. I somehow had missed it on the first visit and when I saw ‘Cat Chaser’ in a table of books for sale at Rs 50 only I jumped at it. On my third and final visit to the sale just a day before I was leaving Dehra Dun I had a couple of hours on hand to check out the collection at the sale. I found Tobias Wolff’s ‘A Pharaoh’s Army’ that I got for the steep price of Rs 195. After I had read his ‘This Boy’s Life’ I learnt that ‘A Pharaoh’s Army’ was worth reading so I bought it.

That wasn’t all. I also read somewhere that somewhere near Paltan Bazaar in Dehra Dun one can get second hand bookstores. So one afternoon when I was free for a couple of hours I went looking for it. After a lengthy search I learnt that there are a couple of shops in Moti Bazaar that stock second hand books. At a stationery store I asked if there were any second hand bookstores in the locality. Luckily the store keeper knew and told me the name ‘Reader’s Choice’ and even as I was leaving he advised me to drive a hard bargain. I located two shops and found that one such store was basically a newspaper scrap dealer who kept a couple of dozen titles where I found nothing worth buying. However, in the second store by name ‘Reader’s Choice’ which was a small store with a couple of thousand books neatly stacked in bookshelves. I found Bhabani Bhattacharya’s ‘Shadow from Ladakh’ which I read was a Sahitya Akademi winner in 1967. Looking at the size of the book I thought the guy would ask for at least a hundred rupees. I thought of asking it for fifty bucks come what may. I got a terrific shock when he asked for twenty rupees.

The haul of five books was the only good thing I brought back from Dehra Dun, the rest being unforgettable tales of miraculous survival, of tragic death, and tales of desperate searches for missing relatives. It is something I feel I cannot write adequately here.