The Sunday Haul

It was a two book haul for me last Sunday at Abids. I already have two copies of Arun Joshi’s ‘The Strange Case of Billy Biswas’ at home. But I couldn’t resist buying another nice copy that I saw with the seller near the GPO at Abids. I got it for fifty rupees and except for a tear on the cover on the left corner at the top the book was in good condition. That was the only book I found at Abids last Sunday but at a seller at RTC X Roads I found another book.

I had been eyeing Shashi Deshpande’s ‘Collected Short Stories, Volume-I’ at this particular seller since the past two weeks. I hesitated to buy it because I thought the seller would ask for nothing less than a hundred bucks for this book. I did not want to buy it at that price though I did not ask him and he did not tell me the price. Last Sunday, I was surprised when he told me he would give the book to me for fifty rupees. I picked it up without a second thought thereby adding one more title to my ever growing collection of short stories.

This volume has twenty four stories: The Legacy, The First Lady, Anatomy of a Murder, Can You Hear Silence?, A Liberated Silence, Why a Robin?, An Antidote to Boredom, It Was the Nightingale, The Stone Women, Mirrors, The Inner Rooms, A Wall is Safer, The Duel, The Awakening, Independence Day, The Day Bapu Died, The Shadow, The Homecoming, The Boy, Waste Lands, My Beloved Charioteer, The Valley in Shadow, The Intrusion, and The Eternal Theme

Quite surprisingly, there is no news about the Hyderabad Book Fair in the papers. One seller I met at Abids told me that it was beginning from the 17th of December in the NTR Stadium grounds. But I wanted some official confirmation. Yesterday while going in a cab near Lakdi ka pul I saw a poster stuck on the rear of an autorickshaw. I had just enough time to read that it was beginning from next Wednesday. Whatever, I am eagerly waiting for the book fair to begin and counting the days.