After watching the heavy rains last Saturday I felt that the rain would continue on Sunday too. In fact, it rained until early in the morning on Sunday and for sometime it looked like I may have to skip the visit to Abids. I was secretly relieved that I would not have to go to Abids. In the past two weeks I had bought several books and I did not want to buy any more for a while. If I went to Abids I wouldn’t return empty handed. However, the sky cleared up by the time it was ready to go to Abids.
The first book I bought at Abids was ‘The Tennis Partner’ by Abraham Verghese that I bought for only twenty rupees. There were scores of copies stacked on the ground as if someone had decided to dump them all. Almost all the copies were in good condition and I was lucky I got a good copy cheap.
While at Goa in April I had been to a bookstore called Literati where in a room filled with second hand books I found a beautiful hardbound copy of ‘A Summer of Tigers’ by Keki N. Daruwala. I paid seventy five rupees for it since I thought I would not be able to get another copy of this rare title. However, last Sunday I came across another beautiful paperback copy that was almost new. The seller asked for only twenty rupees for it.
On the way back home, I stopped at Chikkadpally where I found two more books. I found ‘Slaughterhouse 5’ and also ‘Cat’s Cradle’ both by Kurt Vonnegut. The copies I found were in good condition and appeared almost new. Unlike the sellers at Abids the guys at Chikkadpally don’t bring down the price much. I had to pay hundred and fifty rupees for these two books.
At another seller at Chikkadpally I found ‘The Art of Dramatic Writing’ by Lajos Egri. I have a similar copy with me that I found years ago in a second hand bookstore in Hyderabad. I paid half of the two hundred rupees I had paid for my first copy. I returned home with this five book haul and spent the rest of the afternoon rearranging the books on the shelves at home to accommodate the latest arrivals.
4 comments:
Hello :)
I really enjoy reading your blog. It is so beautiful to read how you spend your time buying books and visiting bookstores; the snippets on how you discover authors, buy multiple editions of a certain favourite read. Keep writing :)
Thank you, Asra.
I am glad you enjoy reading my blog. Keep reading. :)
Hello,
I recently went to Abids on a Sunday and had the most interesting time going through the books there. Since I'm currently studying Journalism, I've been trying to write about the place for a website that my classmates and I run--I was wondering if it would be possible for me to talk to you and ask you some questions? I'd love to hear what the place was like before and how you manage to find so many books--and hopefully in the process I'll manage to find a way of making sense of my own experience there.
Thank you, Ananya. Pl suggest where and when we can have the talk.
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