The Sunday Haul (on 28-08-2016)

Away from Hyderabad for two weeks on official work I badly missed three things: my family, home cooked food, and the Sunday trips to Abids. I could lessen the anguish of not being with my family by talking to them over phone every day, and also sneak out to a hotel to have something different from the stuff being provided to us but there wasn’t anything I could do to get over the massive disappointment of not being able to browse for books at Abids on two Sundays. Ironically, I had forgotten to pack a couple of books to take along on the trip. I had brought along only one book- The Cost of Living’ by Mavis Gallant. I read just one story a day from this terrific collection of short stories. Even then after just a week I ran out of reading material. Luckily for I had a book at office that someone managed to get for me. It was ‘Travelling in Nepal’ by Charlie Pye Smith.

Anyway, last Sunday despite being not too well I went to Abids eager to meet my friends and browse to my heart’s content. I don’t know why but it seems the traffic cops had made the pavement booksellers to limit their displays so it meant that many of the booksellers had just a few books laid out. It was very disappointing but I guess since it was the Hyderabad Marathon the cops must have tried to make sure the runners don’t tread on the books!

I found only one book and it was a wonderful title. I found a collection of stories by Joyce Carol Oates titled ‘faithless: tales of transgression’ that had twenty one stories in three parts: Au Sable; Agly; Lover; Summer Sweat; Questions;Physical; Gunlove in Part One, Faithless; The Scarf; What Then, My Life?; Secret, Silent in Part TWO; A Manhattan Romance; Murder-Two; The Vigil; We Were Worried About You; The Stalker; The Vampire; Tusk; The High School Sweetheart: A Mystery; Death Watch; in *COPLAND* in Part THREE. For a book with twenty one stories it is quite bulky and appears like half a brick. I was glad to find this book but had to pay a hundred rupees for it. I am sure the book is worth more than what I paid for it.