The Lockdown Reads

When I first heard about the lockdown my first reaction was of shock and disbelief. The first thing i thought was that i wouldn't be able to go to Abids for more than three Sundays to look for books. The next thought was how could anyone stay at home for so long without going mad. But soon I realized that it was exactly the sort of break every bibliophile dreams about- hours and hours to read and read. I picked up the first book I spotted on my shelf- I Dreamed of Africa by Kuki Gallmann. It was a wonderful account of the author’s life in Kenya and of course there are some gut-wrenching incidents that brought tears to my eyes. She loses her husband in an accident and her son to a snake bite. In it I read about some people she met who helped her and were doing wonderful work in wildlife conservation in that beautiful country. I finished the book in a day and half.

Apart from reading another thing I resolved to do during the lockdown was to sort my bookshelves and rearrange all the books. After one spell of sorting I found the copy of ‘Nine Faces of Kenya’ by Elspeth Huxley that I had bought some time back. I wanted to read it since it was about Kenya that I had just read about in ‘I Dreamed of Africa’ and in the first few pages itself I came across the same persons and places that Kuki Gallman wrote about – Richard Leakey and also places like Naivasha.

In another pile I saw the copy of ‘A Devil’s Chaplain’ by Richard Dawkins that I had kept aside a long time back to read but had forgotten. Idly I looked at the contents page and saw that some of the essays were about Africa. When I read the essays I was quite surprised to find the names of Richard Leakey, and also , Iain Douglas-Hamilton that I had read about in ‘I Dreamed of Africa’ by Kuki Gallmann. The surprise was because I had come across them so soon after reading them first.

The Sunday Haul (on 15-03-2020)

The previous Sunday I had missed my trip to the Abids book bazaar as I was travelling and not in town. I was counting the days for the next Sunday. But on Saturday which was a government holiday because it was the second Saturday of the month I went out for a routine I follow on Saturdays. At a newspaper vendor in Lakdikapul I buy ‘Mint’, ‘Business Line’ and ‘Business Standard’ for the Saturday supplements that I go through over a cup of chai in an Irani that is right beside the vendor’s. Afterwards I walked over to a second hand bookseller who spreads out a few books on the pavement. There I saw a copy of ‘If I Should Die Before I Wake’ by Michelle Morris that I bought.

On the next day, Sunday, I was at Abids. Around a decade ago, I guess, I found a nice copy of ‘Paro: Dreams of Passion’ by Namita Gokhale that I read soon after. I was glad I found it because reading it convinced me that wonderful stories have been written by women writers in the seventies. Last Sunday I found another copy of the same title but the copy I found was a hardcover one, with the jacket and the cover was worth every rupee of the hundred rupees I paid for it. The other thing was that it seemed to be a first edition and published in 1984 by Chatto & Windus, The Hogarth Press, London. On the back was a black and white photograph of the author.

I am aware that there are some very good writers writing wonderful books in regional languages and I am also amazed at how so few of them are translated into other languages especially English. It isn’t always possible to get books by such writers in the original language even if you are aware of the writer. There are many writers you don't know anything about- not their names and not even titles of their books. I always try to buy translated works if I cannot find them in the original language if they are in Telugu or Hindi, two languages I can read and write. Last Sunday at Abids I came across a book with an attractive cover. It had all the appearance of those books that were published by Indian publishing houses in the seventies. The title on the cover said ‘Against Myself and Other Stories’ by Rajee Seth. It was a slim volume of just eighty two pages containing eleven short stories written by Rajee Seth and translated into English by Jasjit Purewal.

On the way home at Chikkadpally at one of the sellers I saw a stack of books that I sifted through and found two titles worth picking up. I am embarrassed to confess that I haven’t read ‘Dr Zhivago’ by Boris Pasternak so far except for a few short stories. I found a copy of ‘Safe Conduct’ by Boris Pasternak that has ‘an autobiography, poems, and short stories’ as it says on the cover. ‘Safe Conduct’ is the autobiography, Aerial Ways, Letters from Tula, and The Childhood of Luvers are the three short stories in it as well as more than thirty poems.

I had found few titles of James Baldwin though I am yet to read them. In the same stack where I found ‘Safe Conduct’ by Boris Pasternak I found a copy of ‘Nobody Knows My Name’ by James Baldwin. It is a collection of his essays published in various places. I got these two books for only twenty five rupees each. I was glad that the Sunday at Abids yielded a good haul.

Travel Diaries- Kolhapur

Last Sunday I traveled to Kolhapur with the spouse in tow. Here are some of the vignettes from that two day trip. It was the second time I saw the pigeons right inside the terminal at the RGIA in Hyderabad, and one of them sat down on the table as if waiting for breakfast.

The view from one of the fortifications in Panhala was fantastic, with the view stretching to scores of miles ahead.

Some bare trees on a winding road.

The spouse was doing some last minute shopping and I noticed a doorway.

We reached the Rankala lake just as the sun was setting.

Of course I tasted the famed Kolhapur mutton curry and also Tambda rassa. The airport at Kolhapur is small but neat. The people were friendly in the town and no one seemed in a hurry to get anywhere. I had fantasies of living there. This is the view outside the hotel where we stayed.

The Sunday Haul (on 01-03-2020)

My kid joined a software company recently. Though I never tried to understand or know what he studied in college I felt it would a good idea to get to know something about software after I saw a copy of ‘Dreaming in Code’ by Scott Rosenberg. I have already started reading it and just got to know about source code, compilers, and such jargon. I don’t know of what use it would be to me to read this book but then I read all kinds of books in the belief there’s something to learn from every book.

I remember writing down the name Cesare Pavese a long time ago in a notebook after reading about the writer someplace I don’t remember now. It was a name difficult to forget because I had not heard of it before. So when I saw the name again on the cover of a book I saw at Abids I picked it up for a closer look and then bought it. It was a beautiful copy of ‘The Devil in the Hills’ by Cesare Pavese. The cover reminded me of a title by Jean Giono.

Sometimes it is difficult to remember all the names of writers who’ve either won literary prizes/awards or on the short list but a name like Laszlo Krasnahorkai is difficult to forget. The third title I found at Abids was a copy of ‘Satantango’ by Laszlo Krasnahorkai.

The fourth book in the haul I found at Chikkadpally. I remember reading about ‘Death in Venice’ by Thomas Mann somewhere that I cannot recollect now. I had bought not one but two copies of ‘The Magic Mountain’ by Thomas Mann but was looking for his ‘Death in Venice’ that I found last Sunday. I paid only thirty rupees for it.