The Sunday Haul (on 27-06-2021)

 

        It was the usual Sunday morning routine last Sunday here in Hyderabad for me. I was in Abids after a hearty breakfast topped by a cup of hot ginger chai, and feeling good though up there it was quite cloudy. A couple of times I had seen a title but did not buy it because the price appeared too high for me. But last Sunday when I saw a copy of ‘India in Mind’ edited by Pankaj Mishra again I decided to buy it whatever the price. I was quite surprised when the seller said it would be mine for only hundred rupees. It is a collection of extracts on/about Indian from books by well- known authors. There are twenty five of them including some books I have read like ‘The Snow Leopard’ by Peter Matthiessen, ‘A Writer’s Notebook’ by Somerset Maugham, ‘The Great Railway Bazaar’ by Paul Theroux, and also from a few books that I have but haven’t yet read like ‘Hindoo Holiday’ by J.R. Ackerley, ‘Abandon’ by Pico Iyer. There are excerpts from some books by authors I haven’t even heard about. It looks extremely interesting and I plan to read one excerpt a day and finish the book inside of a montth.

            Right now I am in some kind of an ‘Africa Phase’ reading books set in/about Africa, and currently am rereading ‘African Calliope’ by Edward Hoagland for the second time. I was surprised when I read on the back of a book I picked up for a closer book to find that it was set in Africa. This is, perhaps, the first book by an Indian author featuring Africa as the background. It was a copy of ‘The Mountain of the Moon’ by Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay translated into English by Jayanta Sengupta

        One of the most interesting titles in my Africa collection is ‘The Africans’ by David Lamb that I had recently finishing reading for the second time. I found it to be extremely well written and I gained a lot of knowledge about the African countries mentioned in the book.  I had no idea that David Lamb had written other books too and one of them was ‘The Arabs’.  I had finished a bit early at Abids and not wanting to go home too soon I decided to check the stock at the ‘Best Books’ store in Abids. I felt my excitement rise when I spotted ‘The Arabs’ by David Lamb on the spine of a book low on a stack of books on a bookshelf. I took it out and realized that it was by the same David Lamb of ‘The Africans’.  However the price was a steep six hundred rupees but somehow the seller gave it to me for half that price saying I was an old customer.

An hour after I returned home it began to rain heavily for more than two hours. I wondered how the booksellers protected the books and how they got home after the downpour. I hope none of the books have been drenched in the rain because I feel sad if any book is damaged even slightly.