The Sunday Haul (on 26-03-2017)

For more than twenty years I’ve been coming to Abids, week after week, drawn by the prospect of finding good titles in the heaps of books laid out on the pavements every Sunday. Very rarely have I returned disappointed at not finding anything good. Almost every Sunday I find something at least one title good enough to buy and bring home. Over the years I’ve bought thousands of books at the Abids book bazaar on Sundays. This is one place that never ceases to amaze me with kind of treasures it offers to the true book lover.

Since the beginning of this year I’ve been quite lucky finding some really wonderful titles every Sunday at Abids. Last Sunday before I met Uma I found two more good titles. The first find was ‘Women Travel’ which was a title of Rough Guides. The hefty volume had several stories by women travellers of their trips across the world. There were articles by a few writers that I had read about earlier such as Margaret Atwood (Ecuador), Sara Wheeler (Antartica), but the rest were writers I am not aware of. The first-hand accounts of these writers covered almost every country in the world. There were accounts by Sheila Keegan, Rebecca Hardie, and Eleanor Simmons of their trips in India. I got this interesting title for just thirty rupees.

A little before having tea in the café I found a copy of Issue No 210 of ‘The Paris Review’ that I decided to pick up. It had an ‘Art of Fiction’ interview with Herta Muller who won the Nobel Prize a couple of years ago. I got this issue of ‘The Paris Review’ for fifty rupees.

If I’ve read about a particular title and want it I only have to wait for some time for it to turn up at Abids. One such title that I have been waiting to find finally turned up at Abids last Sunday. Ever since I read about ‘The Friends of Eddie Coyle’ by George V Higgins that Stephen King wrote about in his book ‘On Writing’ I’ve been on the lookout for it. I’ve managed to find other George V Higgins titles such as ‘Outlaws’ ‘Wonderful Years, Wonderful Years,’ ‘Bomber’s Law’ but not ‘The Friends of Eddie Coyle’ which turned into some sort of Holy Grail for me.
It’s been a pretty long wait for it, almost a decade, so imagine my joy when at last I spotted it last Sunday a few minutes after we’ve had tea in the café. It felt curiously wonderful holding the copy of ‘The Friends of Eddie Coyle’ in my hand, feeling as if I’ve dug out a diamond out of the earth. I had read “Outlaws” by George V. Higgins that I found to be riveting and wonderfully written. I had then set my heart on finding ‘The Friends of Eddie Coyle’ and at last my wish came true when I spotted it. The wonderful thing was that I did not have to pay much for it. The seller asked for just thirty rupees for it which was peanuts.

I started reading Mint Lounge since more than a few months and I found it to be very interesting. I have a few favourite columns in it one of which is the one by Samar Halarnkar who writes on cooking. In the issue the Saturday before last he had mentioned that his collection of cookbooks is more than hundred strong and one of the titles in his collection is ‘Prashad’ by Jiggs Kalra. I had also read about this book sometime in the past and had vaguely wondered if I would be able to find it at Abids. It did not occur to me to buy it online because the price was somewhere around three hundred rupees. Last Sunday one of the titles I found happened to be ‘Prashad.’ It looked like an ancient copy though it was intact in all respects except for some minor tears on the jacket. The best part was that I got this hardcover book for only fifty rupees which I thought was a steal.

The Sunday Haul (on 19-03-2017)

The uncomfortably warm sun on Sunday morning while I was at Abids was a clear indication that summer was down upon us in Hyderabad. I’ve taken to wearing a cap and also carrying a bottle of water with me to Abids on the Sunday book hunts at Abids. I can well imagine how it would be in the weeks to come. On the first day of March the Met Dept had predicted that it would be another hot summer this year too. I do not understand what to do if it becomes unbearably hot even to step outside. But I am worrying needlessly I guess.

I found two titles at Abids last Sunday. Curiously enough, in one of the Sunday papers, Sunday Express I guess I had read a review of the latest novel by Omar Shahid Hamid. I had been reading quite a bit about this Pakistani policeman and his novels and had wondered if I would get the time to read any book by him if I ever managed to find a copy. I was a bit thrilled when the first book I spotted at Abids turned out to be ‘The Prisoner’ by Omar Shahid Hamid which was in a line of books laid out on the ground very close to the place where I park my bike. The seller asked for a ridiculously high price but I managed to bring it down a little, to a level I could afford to buy the book. He asked for a hundred and fifty rupees and I got it for a hundred. Not bad.

The second title I found was a title I already have a copy of. Sometime back I had found a copy of the complete screenplay of ‘Reservoir Dogs’ by Quentin Tarantino and had got it for quite cheap. Last Sunday I found another copy of the same title and this copy too I got very cheap for just thirty rupees. It was in a beautiful condition and after finding it I realized that I had not read it so far though I had found it almost two years back. It is my plan to read it one of these days.

A futile hunt for a title I missed buying the Sunday before showed how dumb I could be sometime. I had seen a copy of a James Salter novel whose title I cannot recollect now however hard I try. I had tried a tactic to bring down the price but obviously it failed. When a seller quotes a price and I quote a price in return I try to walk off as if to pretend I was not interested. Usually the seller calls me back and gives it to me at the price I asked but last week though I walked off the seller did not call me. So I walked away thinking I would get the book the next Sunday. Next Sunday was last Sunday and the book was nowhere to be seen that made me quite mad at myself. If I cannot find it the next Sunday then I would assume that someone smarter than me had bought it.

The Sunday Haul (on 12-3-2017)

Once again I netted a good haul last Sunday at Abids. I found no less than five wonderful titles that took the year’s total haul so far to forty one books. I am a bit anxious about the recent hauls because there seems to be no way I can read all the books I am finding. I am telling myself that I would spend days reading them after retiring from this job. But it is another five years before I retire and until then I might add another thousand or so books. There is no way I can read all the books I have with me now that I have yet to read so I seriously thinking of either stopping going to Abids or not buy anything unless it is a title that is absolutely irresistible. I’ve made such resolves earlier too but haven’t stuck to them because I love books too much to follow such ideas.

Since more than a couple of weeks I’ve been seeing ‘First Love, Last Rites’ by Ian McEwan at a seller but somehow I did not pick it up. But last Sunday after I saw it again I decided to buy it and did. It is a collection of the following eight stories: Solid Geometry; Homemade; Last Day of Summer; Cocker at the Theatre; Butterflies; Conversation with Cupboard Man; First Love, Last Rites; and Disguises. There was another title that I picked up along with it and that was ‘The Writing of One Novel’ by Irving Wallace that I have bought earlier too several times. Somehow I cannot resist buying books on writing so in it went into my haul. I got these two titles for just sixty rupees.

After finding these two books I found another good title. I saw ‘Monster’ by John Gregory Dunne who is Joan Didion’s husband. It was a book on the experience he had while writing a screenplay and since I like to read such stuff, especially about screenwriting, I decided to buy it. The seller asked for price that I thought was impossibly high though it was a hardcover title and was in a quite good condition. I quoted my price and walked off knowing that I’d get it at my price because he did not put it back but held it in his hand and thought for a long time while looking at the book. After sometime he called me and asked for a price just ten rupees more than what I had quoted. I paid 120 rupees for it and got it. A few steps away in a pile of books being sold for thirty rupees I saw ‘God’s Adversary and Other Stories’ by Shaukat Osman. What drew me to this book was the fact that it was a Penguin title and I remembered reading about this writer somewhere.

The next find was not at Abids but at Chikkadpally. Though I had already bought four books I stopped at the three sellers at Chikkadpally to look at their wares out of sheer habit. I saw a copy of ‘Children of the Alley’ by Naguib Mahfouz who had won the Nobel for literature. Though the seller asked for a high price I bought it. I paid ninety rupees for it and I think the book would be worth more than what I paid for it.

The Sunday Haul (on 05-03-2017)

Last Sunday was one of those not-so-rare Sundays when every title in the haul at Abids was a treasure. Usually, one or two titles in my average haul of 3-4 books happen to be outstanding titles but once in a while all the titles in the haul are truly good titles ( or titles that I think are good) that fill me with a lot of joy at finding them. On Sunday the haul at Abids consisted of three books and all of them were titles that one cannot find so easily and at such low prices. It was my second or third Sunday of the year when the entire haul was a treasure.
There are a couple of sellers in the lane at Abids where I park my bike before setting off to look for books on the pavements. I usually begin by checking out their wares first before going on a predetermined circuit I follow every Sunday. My first find was in the spread of books laid out on the pavement by one of the sellers in the lane. I spotted ‘Break, Blow, Burn’ by Camille Paglia and picked it up to take a closer look at the cover where it said ‘reads forty three of the world’s best poems.’ I glanced inside and found that the book belonged to a professor in an engineering college that I pass everyday on my way to work.

I have never before come across anyone who explained poems to me. This was the first such book so I thought I should buy it right away. But when the seller quoted two hundred and fifty rupees for it I hesitated for a while. Holding the hardcover book with the pink cover in my hand I had an internal conversation with myself about whether it was worth buying the book at that high price. I told myself that I would almost never find anything like it especially something by Camille Paglia. Seeing my reluctance the seller lowered the price to two hundred prices and finally settled at a hundred and eighty rupees that I told him I was ready to pay for it.

Sometime later I met Shrikant and after our usual talks about books, movies, and other subjects of mutual interest at the café we were out again. It wasn’t very hot and so we could browse comfortably. I found another book with a pink cover-The Diana Chronicles by Tina Brown. The book was another massive tome with nearly five hundred pages of small print. Though I knew it would be quite some time before I found the time to read it I bought the book because I was getting it for only thirty rupees. I had never read anything by Tina Brown so I bought it.

I moved on farther holding the two books I had just found and feeling quite pleased with myself. I thought my Sunday was made and that it did not matter if I did not find anything else. I wasn’t really looking but when we reached the seller who sets shop before the GPO I found a title I had already read but did not own a copy of. I saw just the name ‘Atul Gawande’ peeping out from underneath a book on top of it. I knelt down and stretched my hand to take out the book from the spread. My heart gave a leap when I saw that it was ‘Being Mortal’ which was the latest of Atul Gawande. It was an almost new hardcover copy and I knew I had to buy it. The only problem again turned out to be the cost. The seller asked for three hundred and fifty rupees which was more than half the price printed on the back. After some hard bargaining I managed to lower the price to a hundred and fifty rupees. I felt elated that at last I had my own copy of ‘Being Mortal’ that I had read sometime last year after borrowing the copy that Uma had ordered online. I wish I could now find ‘Gene’ by Siddhartha Mukherjee at Abids sometime soon.

The Sunday Haul (on 26-2-2017)

Last Sunday at Abids it wasn’t as hot as it was the Sunday before. It was sunny and warm when I reached Abids at my usual time of eleven. Apart from the good weather the other good thing was the presence of my friends who turned up after a long time. We sat for a long time in the café talking books, movies, and catching up on our lives until that day. To top up I ended up with a nice haul of four books.

Sometime last month I finished reading Ingmar Bergman’s autobiography-The Magic Lantern- that I had found in October at Abids. I enjoyed reading about his trials and tribulations during his life in the movies. I don’t remember if he had mentioned in it that he had also written another book. I was surprised to find another Ingmar Bergman title last Sunday. It was ‘Sunday’s Children,’ a novel, translated from Swedish by Joan Tate that I picked up from the pavement. I got it quite cheap at just thirty rupees.

With the same seller I also found an EM Foster title- The Hill of Devi- which seems to be some sort of correspondence with someone about the time Foster was in the employ of some kind of royalty in an Indian state. It seemed interesting because it was one of those Orient Paperbacks editions issued sometime in the fifties or sixties with beautiful covers. I took the book primarily for the cover and because of the fact that it was an Orient-Mayfair Paperbacks title. I also noticed that the publisher was Arnold-Hienemann. It was quite cheap too, just thirty rupees.

The best part of the copy of ‘The Hill of Devi’ that I found was finding a small label pinned to the first page with the words ‘ With Best Complements from B.P. Agarwalla, Dhansar’ typed in blue colour on it. It made wonder who B.P.Agarwalla was and who the book was intended for.

Walking further down the street I had seen a collection of contemporary American short stories that seemed very interesting because there was a story by James Slater in it and other writers. Though I wanted to buy it the stiff price quoted by the seller put me off and I moved on. Then in a heap of books selling for only thirty rupees I spotted a book by an author with a name I had seen minutes before in the collection of American short stories. The book I saw was ‘In Country’ by Bobbie Ann Mason and I took it though until then I had not heard the name of this writer.

The fourth and last find of the Sunday’s haul was a small but beautifully designed cookbook. It was one in a series of ‘Quick and Easy Indian’ cookbooks by Roli Books. The one I found was ‘Simply Vegetarian’ that I made a grab for the moment I saw it. It has more than fifty recipes for starters and main courses with beautiful photographs of the dishes that made my mouth water. I was surprised that something so well designed could be produced in Indian but when I read inside I realized that the book was printed and bound in, where else, China.