The weather gods are being too kind to me on Sunday mornings when I set out for Abids to look for books. Once again the weather was quite clear on Sunday morning at Abids. It was cloudy alright but it did not look like it would rain. I was glad the weather was just perfect for going around looking at the hundreds of titles laid out on the pavements of Abids. Another couple of weeks and the festival season would begin and the second hand booksellers would disappear for weeks altogether. So, with the idea of making hay while the sun shines, I decided to look really closely and try to find good titles. Somehow despite my reluctance to take more books home and general wish about not finding anything I end up finding more books than expected. Last Sunday the haul turned out to be good as well as a large one with six titles in the bag.
A couple of weeks ago I had finished reading ‘Here Lies Eric Ambler,’ Eric Ambler’s autobiography that I had found a long time back. I haven’t read anything by Ambler till then. After reading it I had in my mind to read one of his fiction titles. Usually I come across a lot of Eric Ambler titles out there at Abids but I hadn’t seen ‘The Levanter’ even once. So when I saw a copy of Eric Ambler’s ‘The Levanter’ first thing in the morning at Abids I picked it up. I got it for only twenty rupees. I plan to read it one of these days since it appears not too lengthy.
Then the next find was a multiple haul. One of the sellers I like is a deferential young man who gives the books to me at whatever price I ask. Since I do not want to abuse his respect for me I pay whatever price he quotes. Last Sunday I saw him sorting out books from a pile of books. I came closer to take a better look and saw two VS Naipaul titles that I had been trying to find. I saw ‘Beyond Belief’ and also ‘Among the Believers’ that I decided to take whatever be the price. I took them out and then another title fell out of the pile. It was a nice copy of ‘Chikaveera Rajendra’ by Masti Venkatesa Iyengar. I thought he’d ask more than three hundred and fifty rupees for these three books. But I was quite surprised when he quoted only two hundred rupees for these three titles. I was quite taken aback since I had seen the VS Naipaul titles at a second hand book store in the past and found that each title was priced at more than two hundred rupees. For the price of one VS Naipaul title in the second hand bookstore I got two of his books along with another good one by another author on the pavement.
Since the past couple of weeks I have been finding at least one good title among the piles of books that three sellers sell for twenty rupees. On Sunday with one of the three sellers I found a Penguin title that looked interesting. It was ‘the Night of Wenceslas’ by Lionel Davidson. I had never heard of this author so I hesitated for a while. On the cover it said it was made into a movie and that piqued my interest and I bought it. In another pile of twenty rupee books with another seller I found a book by one of my favourite authors-Ross Thomas. I found a copy of ‘The Mordida Man’ that had a battle worn cover with a lot of scratches but otherwise in good condition.
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