As Abids came closer the number of traffic policemen on the road seemed to increase. Then I noticed the barricades and realized that some VIP was traveling on the road. What I did not know was that it was something else. The usual booksellers on the pavement of the main road along with the people who sold readymade clothes from pushcarts and tables on the edge of the road were absent. Later while parking the bike I remembered about the political rally that was to pass on the route. So the traffic cops hadn’t allowed any seller, vendor on the road the rally was supposed to pass. I was a bit disappointed since I had planned to pick up some titles I had missed buying the previous Sunday.
However
in a lane I found the sellers who usually set shop there. In one of the piles I
found an Orient Paperbacks title. Somehow I have developed this fascination for
Orient Paperback titles by obscure and little-known writers published in the
60’s and 70’s. Writers like Leena Dhingra, Mayah Balse, and others. The book I
saw had an arresting cover in read with an equally arresting title- ‘Assignment
in Kashmir’ by Aamir Ali. I bought it for forty rupees. That was the only find
at Abids but at another place I found the second title of the day.
At
the seller who spreads his pile of books round the corner of the RTC X Roads
junction I had looked at the titles displayed. It was on the second sweep of
the eyes that I spotted the copy of ‘The Transfiguring Places’ by Arvind
Krishna Mehrotra.’ It gave me quite a thrill to find something by Arvind
Krishna Mehrotra with his picture on the cover. The book was a hardcover with
the jacket intact. Ravi Dayal is the publisher and it was published in 1998.
There are thirty three poems in this title that I got for just thirty rupees.
No comments:
Post a Comment