The Sunday Haul (on 31-07-2022)

The Blog Completes 15 years.

Last Sunday it was again a bit cloudy foreboding rain sometime during the day. However it did not rain while I was in Abids on Sunday morning. I had left behind some titles that I told myself I would pick up this Sunday. Unfortunately I couldn’t find the copy of Vita Sackville West’s ‘St Joan of Arc’ and also ‘Goodbye to All That’ by Robert Graves that I had seen the previous Sunday. I was disappointed but didn’t give up hope because I know they would surface again later. However with the same seller I found a nice title by a writer whose name I remember well. I found a copy of ‘The Sympathizer’ by Viet Thanh Nguyen. While looking at the book I tried to recollect the title that became a bestseller sometime back but was not successful. But after I saw the praise for this title I picked it up though I had to pay two hundred rupees.

The previous Sunday I had seen a bunch of Orient Longman’s ‘Literature in Translation’ titles from which I had picked up only one and left behind the rest. I regretted not buying them all and so last Sunday I started for home eagerly hoping to find the titles I had not bought. Luckily no one had even looked at them. I looked at all of them carefully and chose five titles that I wanted. I got them all for three hundred rupees. 

The first title in the pile was a book by Mannu Bhandari. Only recently I had read about Mannu Bhandari somewhere so when I saw the copy of ‘The Great Feast’ by Mannu Bhandari I picked up. It was a Hindi novel originally titled ‘Mahabhoj” that was translated from Hindi by Ruth Vanita.

The second title was a copy of ‘Shock Therapy’ by Subodh Ghose. This is a collection of eighteen short stories written by Subodh Ghose in  Bengali that were translated into English by various people.  

The third title was a slim book with ‘The Long Long Days’ by P.M. Nityanandan on a colourful cover. It is a novel in Malayalam and translated into English by the author himself. Nityanandan seemed to be an interesting person. He is a Mechanical Engineer, started a company with others that manufactured gears and was also Chairman of Gears Committee of the BIS. He also wrote, was a keen flautist, also composed and performed in many concerts. Plus he was a Francophile, had lived in France and was on the board of the Alliance Francaise in Madras. I wish I could learn more about this multifaceted writer. 

The fourth title in the pile was a beautiful copy ‘The Touch-me-not Girl’ by Rajlukshmee Debee, a translation of a Bengali novel into English by the author herself. 

The fifth title was another collection of short stories title ‘Anaro & Other Stories’ by Manjul Bhagat.  Again these Hindi stories have been translated into English by the author. It has seven stories- Anaro, The Sunshine Cone, The Release, Kahari, The Secret Laughter, Bebeji, and Bano.  I have never heard of these titles or the writers but I am glad I got them all together at one place.