The Sunday Haul (on 14/03/2021)

I think I am very lucky to live in a city like Hyderabad where I get to pick choice titles from a selection of thousands of books laid out on the pavements of Abids every Sunday.  Sunday is one day of the week I look forward to. Others want to stay at home and laze around but I want to go to Abids and browse for books to buy. It is a million dollar feeling nothing can beat, the feeling when I return home with a couple of good titles. Last Sunday too I managed to find three wonderful titles.

The first title I found was a copy of ‘Inside/out: New Writing from Goa’ that had articles etc by writers and others living in Goa. It has twenty eight essays by writers like Vivek Menezes, Savia Viegas, Damodar Mauzo, Amitav Ghosh whose names are familiar to me, and also by writers I haven’t heard of before. Wendell Rodericks is another name I am familiar with. On checking the flyleaf I saw that someone in Goa had gifted this book to a couple with the message: ‘ a bit of Goa to take back.’ I got this collection for hundred rupees.

Somehow the recent weeks seem to be Vijay Nambisan season. A couple of weeks ago I had found a copy of ‘Language as an Ethic’ by Vijay Nambisan. On Sunday soon after the Goa title I spotted a nice copy of ‘Bihar Is in the Eye of the Beholder’ by Vijay Nambisan with another seller down the road. It was a brand new copy. There are about a dozen essays in it and also a prologue, an epilogue, and afterword to the new edition. I was delighted to find it because I like to read such books and I had always wanted to read more of Vijay Nambisan’s journalism. I got this book for a hundred and fifty rupees.

 

Outside the Best Books branch in Abids, there’s a display of books laid out selling for Rs 20 and Rs 50. I stopped there to take a look on the way back. I spotted a book with the title ‘The Big Heat’ by William P. McGivern that appeared to be a crime fiction title. On taking a closer look at the cover I discovered that it was also made into a movie by Fritz Lang starring Glenn Ford and Lee Marvin so I thought it would be something worthwhile to read. It was in the Rs 20 section that I found it so that was what I paid for it.