The Sunday Haul at Coimbatore (on 26.03.2023)

Since the past couple of years I’m being sent to Ooty to coordinate trekking of Officer Trainees undergoing Foundation Course at our Institute. I had been to Ooty only last November-December and last week again I had to go to Ooty in preparation of the trek. Last Sunday I was in Coimbatore for a couple of hours on the way back to Hyderabad. Since I had a few hours before the flight in the evening I decided to check out the second-hand bookstores that the cab driver told me about when I asked him. 

 

In Eswaran Kovil street in the Townhall area near the Coimbatore Railway station I saw about half a dozen small stalls each filled with hundreds of books mainly text books but a few had old novels also. I was pretty excited seeing these stalls as I usually spend my Sunday mornings looking for books at the Abids second hand book bazaar. I found a copy of ‘Breakfast on Pluto’ by Patrick McCabe for fifty rupees at one stall. 

Another title I picked up was a copy of ‘Star of the Sea’ by Joseph O’Connor that I got for a hundred and twenty rupees. It was a bit too high a price but I couldn’t resist it. Another reason was that I wanted something to read while waiting at the airport for the flight that was a couple of hours away. 

Now I regret not buying the Alice Munro collection I saw at another stall just because the seller asked a very high price and couldn’t reduce the price. 

 

But I am terribly pleased that I did not miss the Sunday Haul though it wasn’t at Abids in Hyderabad.