The Sunday Haul (on 26-02-2023)

The summer season is well on its way in Hyderabad though February is not yet done with. It was uncomfortably warm last Sunday in Hyderabad when I set out for Abids. I came home with five titles when I had actually planned not to buy more than one title. But that’s Abids for you; it throws titles that I simply cannot leave behind without buying them.  

 Since a long time I’ve been planning to find out more about philosophy especially Indian philosophical thought but have been baulking thinking I wouldn’t be able to understand such a dense subject as it is beyond my limited brains. But last Sunday after I saw a hardcover copy of ‘The Problematic and Conceptual Structure of Classical Indian Thought about Man, Society, and Polity’ by Daya Krishna, I thought let me make a beginning with this title and bought it. I paid a hundred rupees for this title that seems to be some kind of an academic book. 

The second find at Abids last Sunday was a copy of ‘Keep it Real’ by Lee Gutkind, a book on writing creative non-fiction. It was a slim book and Lee Gutkind seemed kind of familiar name that I had come across in writing magazines, I think. Slim though the book was it didn’t come cheap at two hundred rupees. 

 When I spotted the copy of ‘The Madras Mag Anthology of Contemporary Writing’ edited by Krupa Ge that had an attractive cover I decided to buy it whatever the cost. I got it for a hundred rupees and after I got home and opened it, I found not only a beautiful bookmark but a few of the authors who had contributed to the anthology had also signed on one of the inside pages. I could make out the signatures of Sharanya Manivannan and also MR Sharan. 

I love everything published by the venerable Sahitya Akademi. They publish translations of stories and novels of little-known writers in different parts of India and the books are very modestly priced. Sometime back I had found copies of ‘Contemporary Indian Short Stories-Series I, II & III’ by Sahitya Akademi. Last Sunday I found a beautiful copy of ‘Contemporary Indian Short Stories-Series I’ by Sahitya Akademi that I had forgotten I already have but bought it anyway. There are fifteen stories in this series, by Ismat Chugtai, Bhabani Bhattacharya, Kalindi Charan Panigrahi, Dhumketu, Masti Venkatesa Iyengar and others. 

 I had been looking for a decent copy of Fowler’s ‘Modern English Usage’ that I can afford since a long time and at last I found a nice copy but the price was a ridiculous thirty rupees. I couldn’t believe it since such books especially dictionaries and the like are not available for less than a hundred rupees at Abids.