A Mid-week Haul

Last Sunday it was pure agony. I was confined at home all day because it was raining since the previous night. On Saturday night I had gone to sleep hoping the skies would clear up by morning so I could go to Abids. Unfortunately my hope did not stand a chance. I experience a kind of deprivation or withdrawal symptoms if I do not go to Abids on Sunday. I manage to get over that feeling by dropping in at a second hand bookstore but it doesn’t feel the same as looking at the books spread out on the pavement. Sometime last week I had dropped in at the Best Books branch at Abids where I saw a book of travel essays and one of which was by Moritz Thomsen. I did not buy it right away which is one fatal mistake I commit quite regularly. Yesterday when I dropped in at the store I couldn’t locate the book. It made me sick.

However, looking around at the books stacked from floor to ceiling in the cramped store I found a book that I had been looking for since quite a long time. I found ‘Fresh-Air Fiend’ by Paul Theroux that I had missed buying the first time I saw it ages ago. Since then I have had my eyes peeled for this book and at last I found it. It made me forget the travel collection I had missed buying. I was ready to spend any amount for this title but fortunately it was only less than two hundred rupees which, still, is quite a high price. But then prices of second hand books in Abids and in second hand book stores aren’t the same.

The copy of ‘Fresh-Air Fiend’ by Paul Theroux that I found was a beautiful copy with a blue cover and it looked quite new. The book is divided into eight parts with a total of more than fifty pieces, all of them related to travel, needless to say. This is a collection of his travel writings during the period 1985-2000. I am interested in reading the pieces in Part Six of the book which deals with Books of Travel- his and others’. I am terribly pleased with myself that I could find this book instead of the book I was looking for.