The haul at Abids on Sunday is getting heavier by the week. The Sunday before last I had a haul of almost nine books and last Sunday too I brought home four books. I had thought that with the Dasara festival barely two weeks away the regular shops at Abids would be open and there wouldn’t be many books to buy. But though some of the regular shops were open displacing the second hand book sellers I landed a modest haul. I wonder if I pick up more books when I am alone because last Sunday none of my friends turned up.
Shashi Deshpande is a writer whose books I have but I haven’t heard much about Gauri Deshpande. One of the first titles I found last Sunday at Abids was a nice copy of ‘The Lackadaisical Sweeper’ by Gauri Deshpande. It was published under the ‘Manas’ imprint and I got this collection of short stories for just thirty rupees. These are the following sixteen stories in it: ‘Hookworm, Lamprey, Tick, Fluke and Flea; The Lackadaisical Sweeper; Hello, Stranger!; A Harmless Girl; Map; Whatever Happened to…; Smile and Smile and …; The Debt; Insy Winsy Spider; Vervain; Rose Jam; Morgan in Disguise; Dmitri in the Afternoon; Habits; Brand New Pink Nikes.’ At the end of the book is an afterword by R. Raj Rao.
At another seller I was surprised to find another collection of short stories under the ‘Mana’ imprint and spotting this book got me excited. It was ‘Neermai’ by Na Muthuswamy, a writer I had only heard about recently. ‘Neermai’ by Na Muthuswamy is a collection of ten short stories translated by Lakshmi Holstrom into English from the original Tamil. The ten stories in it: An Incident; His Father’s School; Time Passing in Punjai; The Honeycomb and the Snake; How Shall We Go to Chembanarkoil? ; Death; Who Will be My Refuge; Cart; Neermai; and Battlefield. However this seller was a different one, someone who prices his books too impossibly high and doesn’t much encourage bargaining. So I paid the price he quoted, a hundred rupees, and took the book.
Though none of my friends had turned up I followed another Sunday routine at Abids by having chai at the Irani café. I sat and leafed through the two collections of short stories I had found, quite unusually by the same publisher. Both the books were in quite good condition and I felt lucky finding them. The next find was a wonderful copy of ‘Snakeman’ by Zai Whitaker that I got for just fifty rupees. I have been reading about Romulus Whitaker since I was a kid, and had also been seeing him in action on the wildlife channels on television.
The last find was another cookbook I had seen earlier with another seller who wanted something like a hundred and fifty rupees for it. However last Sunday I got the same title for just thirty rupees. It was a copy of Part I of ‘Cook & See’ by S. Meenakshi Ammal.
6 comments:
Do you try out the recipes from the cookbooks?
Only a few times so far.
Why I am not getting good books during this time? And, I never could find Stephen King's On Writing there, which it seems you have found more than once. Share your knack with us.
Navneel, there's no knack. Keep your eyes open and be patient.
Good to know :). Request you to please write a blog on how you keep your books, how do you manage the space with so many books? Any tips for organizing books...it will be very helpful
This is one question no one who buys as many books as I do can answer. There are books almost everywhere at home.
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