The Bookfair Haul-2

Within an hour after reaching home after a long six day trip to Arunachal Pradesh I got ready to go out on another journey. This was a journey into the world of books. It was the last day of the 32nd Hyderabad National Book Fair and I did not want to miss visiting it since I had not visited after the second visit on the second day of the fair. I had picked up a total of five books on those two initial visits and I knew there were many more books I had not spotted. The visit on the last day of the book fair yielded another five titles taking the total number of books I had picked up at the 2018 Book Fair to ten. It is far less than the number of books I had bought at the book fair in the previous years but I am not complaining.

In the stall where I had picked up two titles on the earlier visit I managed to find two more titles I had not seen earlier. The first title I saw was a nice copy of Doris Lessing’s ‘Walking in the Shade’ the second volume of her autobiography. Though I do not have the first volume I picked up this copy in the hope that I would find the first volume someday. Besides, I cannot resist autobiographies of writers and so I made it the first find of the day.

In the same stall I spotted another book with a vivid cover with the title-‘The Virgin of Flames’ by Chris Abani. I have not heard or read about Chris Abani but I picked up this book solely on the strength of the blurb by Guardian on the front cover. I really hope this book is as good as it looks when I finally get around to reading it sometime soon.

Sometime earlier in the day I had come across a tweet by Uma Mahadevan Gupta who writes about books in ‘The Hindu’ where she had praised ‘Old Filth’ by Jane Gardam. Somehow the title stuck in my mind and imagine my wonder when I spotted the very book in another stall. I did not hesitate too long and picked it up. I thought it was a sort of minor miracle finding a title that someone had praised not too long ago.

Now I have been looking for a title, any title, by Elena Ferrante since long but wasn’t successful in finding them. But yesterday at the book fair I got lucky and came across an almost brand new copy of ‘The Lost Daughter’ by Elena Ferrante. I wanted to buy it whatever the price but the book seller was the friendly book seller who gave me a free pass this year also, and who reduced the price for me to a hundred and eighty rupees. I was glad at last I now have an Elena Ferrante title to read.

There are very few foodies who do not know about the famous ‘Moti Mahal’ in Delhi. It is an institution by itself because I have read about this eatery so many times that I plan to visit it on my next visit to Delhi. The butter chicken and tandoori chicken were two of the several creations of Kundan Lal Gujral who founded ‘Moti Mahal’ in Darya Ganj. I did not know that there’s a book on it until I spotted a hardcover copy of ‘Moti Mahal’s Tandoori Trail’ by Monish Gujral in a different second hand book stall at the book fair. It is an interesting book with an introduction by Uma Vasudev interspersed with photographs of Kundan Lal Gujral with various celebrities like Sam Manekshaw, Nargis, Zakir Hussain, Nehru, Indira Gandhi and others. Of course, there are several recipes of the dishes served in Moti Mahal. I felt very glad finding this unique title that was the last find of the five book haul on the last day of the 32nd Hyderabad National Book Fair.

The Book Fair Haul

The only event in Hyderabad I look forward to very eagerly is the Book Fair that is usually held in the month of December. This year is unique since the 31st Hyderabad National Book Fair was held in the month of January, 2018 and the 32nd is being held in the same year. Anyway, I was there on the very first day even before it was officially inaugurated. However, since it was the Vice-President who was inaugurating the fair I had to wait outside for some time before the cops let us in. As soon as I entered I went straight to the second hand book stores from out of town and managed to find two interesting titles on the first day of the Book Fair.

The first title I found was ‘The Opposite House’ by Helen Oyeyemi. I had read about Helen Oyeyemi somewhere and the name rang a bell when I saw it on the cover of a book. The other title I picked up was one I had found recently elsewhere. But I did not want to leave ‘Havanas in Camelot’ by William Styron behind so I picked it up. I did not get them cheap though for I had to pay three hundred and fifty rupees for the two titles.
There were about 350 stalls out of which the second hand book stalls were more than a dozen, almost of all of them Hyderabad based sellers, the ones I see in Abids every Sunday. Sadly there were only two or three from other places. Another disappointing thing was that the collection of second hand titles did not appear to be as good as those in the previous years.

But on the next day, Sunday as it happens, I found some more interesting titles after a careful search. There were huge crowds which was a heartening sight to watch as people went around with several bags filled with books in their hands. This must be the only occasion when one sees so many people who love books at one place. Quite unusually, I couldn’t spot anyone who I see regularly at Abids on Sundays.

I found a nice copy of ‘The Music of Love’ by Dorothy Green which turned out to be a collection of essays on literature. I picked it up since it was a Penguin title and also because the author was an Australian. There are nineteen essays in this collection and I hope to read them one by one leisurely. Then in the same place I found another collection of food writing and this was again by Penguin. The copy of ‘Out to Lunch’ by Paul Levy that I found was in good shape and I picked it up because while leafing through it I found there was a lengthy piece about the author’s visit to India titled ‘India diary’ in it.

When I visited the stall owned by a friendly bookseller at Abids who gives me a free entry pass every year I saw him seated but couldn’t find any title worth buying. I did not want to leave without buying anything from him so I looked all over once again and found a beautiful copy of ‘A Lesson Before Dying’ by Ernst J. Gaines that I bought. I paid him more than what he asked for it and that seemed to make him happy.

The Sunday Haul (on 09.12.2018)

With the 32nd Hyderabad National Book Fair just a week away, on Sunday I was wondering whether to go to Abids and saddle myself with some more books. But I went more out of habit than a real need to buy more books. It was the second Sunday of the month and so The Hindu had the Literary Review supplement in which Uma Mahadevan Dasgupta had written about her visit to Sri Lanka in an article where she had also mentioned some lines from Sri Lankan author Ashok Ferrey’s ‘Serendipity.’ Quite coincidentally ‘Serendipity’ by Ashok Ferrey was the first title I spotted at Abids. I did not need much persuasion and so I picked it up for just thirty rupees.

Another good title I found was a nice copy of ‘One Thousand Nights on a Bed of Stones and Other Stories’ by K.A. Abbas which was published by Jaico in 1957. The book has ten stories: Wheat and Roses; Maharaja’s Elephant; Cartoon; Evening in Paris; Dead Letter; Sparrows; The Mark of an Indian; Ajanta; and Five Faces of Mother India. I got this book for only twenty rupees from a pile.

I usually check out old copies of hardcover titles in the hope of finding something rare and interesting especially if they have no covers and one cannot tell the book unless it is opened. I spotted one such hardcover bound in brown with a seller who sensed I was interested in it. On the inside page was the title- ‘Of the Raj, Maharajas and Me’ by M.A. Sreenivasan, another memoir by a civil servant. I try to avoid such books because they are usually dry accounts of their service in some posting they think is interesting and write every minute detail of each and every incident as if they were earth-shaking events. But this title appeared different because the publisher was Ravi Dayal there were beautiful old black and white photographs inside and the language too was very different. M.A. Sreenivasan was an ICS officer and from what I read while randomly turning over the pages he seems to have had some interesting experiences that I wanted to read more about. So I bought it and added it to the growing pile in the Sunday haul.

The find of the day was a beautiful copy of ‘The Big Sleep and Other Novels’ by Raymond Chandler. I already have a copy of ‘The Big Sleep’, a copy of ‘Farewell, My Lovely’ and also a copy of ‘The Big Sleep’ but ‘The Big Sleep and Other Novels’ had all these three Chandler classics in one place so that was enough reason for me to pick this up. However it did not come cheap and I had to pay more than two hundred rupees for this lovely title.

The Haul at New Delhi

After a long wait last week I managed to visit Pahargunj in New Delhi to check out ‘Jacksons Books’ that I had read about several years ago. Barely a fortnight after visiting Kohima I got the chance to visit New Delhi last week to attend a five-day training course. The venue was YMCA on Jai Sing Road which made it easy for me to explore many places in the evening after the training sessions of the day ended.

Last Monday, the very first day of the training course, as soon as the sessions ended I started for Paharganj with two things on my mind. I couldn’t do the first thing which was to have the chole bhature at Diwan Chand Sitaram of which I had read about recently. The place was closed by the time I reached there at around half past five in the evening. I was a bit disappointed about it but Jacksons Books was open which lifted my mood greatly.
‘Jacksons Books’ is a small roadside store but it is a minor treasure house. The titles are mostly those that foreign tourists visiting India would read up before landing in the country. There were books on spirituality, yoga, and travelogues on India by Eric Newby, Paul Theroux mostly. There were several copies of ‘The Pillars of Hercules’ ‘The Great Railway Bazaar’, ‘Dark Star Safari’ and other Paul Theroux titles that I almost bought but for the prices.

The first title I spotted in Jackson’s Books was a beautiful copy of ‘Simon Winchester’s Calcutta’ by Simon Winchester. The copy I found was almost new. I had recently read ‘Longing Belonging’ by Bishwanath Ghosh before visiting Kolkata briefly a fortnight ago, and wanted to read more about Kolkata so I bought it. I really hope the book is good because I had to pay quite a hefty sum for it.

The next find was another new looking title-‘The Ghosts of Meenambakkam’ by Ashokamitran. Ashokamitran happens to be one of my favourite writers so I picked it up without a second thought. For this too I had to pay a big sum but I did not mind because it was an Ashokamitran title. I read the slim book on the flight home from New Delhi and somehow I did not find it as good as other Ashokamitran titles.

A long time ago I had picked up a book by Laurens van der Post on a hunch. It was a copy of ‘Venture to the Interior’ that I read soon after and was found it interesting. So when I found ‘A Walk with a White Bushman’ by Laurens van der Post I added it to the haul. This book didn’t come cheap though.

There were more books in another room in a lane just beside the store that I decided to check out another day. On the last day of the training course just before leaving for the airport I once again went to Pahargunj. Though it was not yet five in the evening I was once again disappointed to see that there was no chole bhature left at Sitaram Dewan Chand that had downed its shutters.

I finally got to see the other stock of Jacksons Books kept in another room a few steps away. Here too there were books in almost all the languages of the world and in the large section of books in English I managed to spot a beautiful new copy of ‘Journals of John Cheever’ by John Cheever. It is one big tome and the kind of book I like to read and I bought it though I had to shell out four hundred rupees for it.
With four books making up the haul at New Delhi the visit was more meaningful than some of my past visits to the capital.