An Online Haul

 This post is the last of the posts in the 16^th or 17^th year of this blog, I am not clear. I began the blog on the 31^stof 2007.  Next week this blog turns 18?

 

I have a thing for short stories. I haven’t read as many as I should have though I have plenty of collections of short stories by many famous names in Indian as well as those in other places. It is as if I am hoarding these short story collections to read some time in the future. I think I began my reading life with short stories and over the years have get to know some really good writers who have written the kind of stories you never forget. I have almost all the titles by Alice Munro, a couple of titles by Lorrie Moore, but I am yet to find anything by Grace Paley save for a short story or two by her that I chanced upon in anthologies. Somewhere I read about ‘I Stand Here Ironing’ by Tille Olsen but haven’t been able to find it anywhere until last week when I got lucky and bagged a copy of ‘Tell Me a Riddle’ by Tille Olsen in a sale on WhatsApp. 

 

I knew that Tille Olsen wrote some really good stories but I did not expect to find ‘I Stand Here Ironing’ in ‘Tell Me a Riddle’ that I received the other day. I was delighted to find this famous and much quoted story in this collection along with three other stories including the title story. The other stories in this slim collection include: Hey Sailor, What Ship?; and O Yes. 

Later when I opened the book to take a better look I was pleasantly surprised it was a New Year gift to a friend in 2000 from someone called Thrity. It set off my imagination and I wondered who Thrity was and who it was she gifted the book to and how it ended with the bookseller from whom I bought it. 

The Sunday Haul (on 16-07-2023)

I was away from Hyderabad and missed the visits to Abids on two Sundays so when I set out for Abids this Sunday I was filled with an eagerness and excitement I feel only when I am around books. 

The first haul at Abids last Sunday was a title that I had seen before the trip to Delhi. I had not picked it up then but when I saw it last Sunday I was glad no one bought it. ‘Still Counting the Dead: Survivors of Sri Lanka's Hidden War’ by Frances Harrison is about the killings in Sri Lanka and the aftermath. I got this book for just fifty rupees. After buying this title I walked into the Irani to have a cup of chai while going through the find. I wasn’t surprised to see Danny at a table sipping on his chai as he is also a regular at Abids. So I sat with him and we talked about the books we found, our mutual friends and later went around looking at the books laid out on the pavements. 

 

For some reason I like to read books on psychiatry, psychology that explain why people behave and think the way they do. I am fascinated about such things and so when I saw a copy of ‘On Becoming a Person: A Therapist’s View of Psychottherapy” by Carl R. Rogers with a seller who seems to stock only good titles I bought it.

 

On the same shelf I also saw a nice copy of ‘If I Die in a Combat Zone’ by Tim O’Brien that I immediately picked up as I also have his ‘Things They Carried’ that I haven’t been able to read though I bought the book years ago. I got this title too for a hundred and fifty rupees, the same price I paid for ‘On Becoming a Person’ that was also a brand new copy. 

The Delhi Haul

I was travelling so I couldn’t do the post last Sunday and the previous Sunday. 

 

The previous Sunday I landed in Delhi to attend a training course for a week at NIDM in Rohini. My last visit to Delhi was in 2019 a few months before the Covid lockdown disrupted all travel. So, after four years I was back in Delhi for a week during which I had a few things to do of which the most important thing was to go to the Sunday book market at Mahila Haat on the day I was supposed to leave for home. I hadn’t been to this place since almost four years and I was just eager to check out the books there. 

On Tuesday, the 4^th of July I went along with fellow participants who wanted to shop at Connaught Place. I had planned to check out the books in Anil Book Corner where I had bought a few books on my earlier visits. The place was exactly the same it was though the person who was the owner appeared a little older. I found a copy of ‘Journey into Russia’ by Laurens van der Post and got it for just a hundred rupees. I had found van der Post’s ‘Venture in to the Interior’ at Abids sometime in 2013, and a copy of ‘A Walk with a White Bushman’ in New Delhi in 2018. Though I have read ‘Venture into the Interior’ I am yet to read ‘A Walk…’ 

 

The training course was over on Friday and in the evening I came to CR Park to stay with my brother. From Monday to Friday the weather was awful in Delhi with high humidity making one sweat. But the weather forecast showed that it would rain heavily on Saturday and Sunday dampening my moods. I went out on Saturday and bought a copy of ‘A Whole Life’ by Robert Seethaler that I wanted to gift to my ex-boss who I was visiting later in the day. It had been raining quite heavily a few minutes after I left Mohan Singh Place where I had gone to have a cup of coffee at the India Coffee House outlet on the second floor. I picked up the book and went to my ex-boss’s place and gave the book to her. I already have a copy of the same title at home and had found it to be a wonderfully written short novella. 

 

On Sunday too it was cloudy and rained in the morning until about half past ten. There was a pause in the rain and I decided to go to Mahila Haat whatever. Luckily for me it did not rain all the time I was there. There was ankle deep water in the place and the sellers were just putting up their books on the stone platforms with plastic sheets above to prevent the books from getting wet from the rain. A few minutes after reaching the place I found a wonderful book- ‘A Rumor of War’ by Philip Caputo that I just knew was a fantastic find after I saw the one word blurb ‘Classic’ by Guardian on the cover. 

 

Another find was a copy of a slim book- ‘Foe’ by J.M. Coetzee that I got for a hundred rupees. I love Coetzee’s writing and picked this title hoping it would be as good as his other titles especially ‘Disgrace’ that I had read some time ago.

 

Another find in a heap of books selling for fifty rupees was a nice copy of ‘The Girl from Nongrim Hills’ by Ankush Saikia. I had read his ‘Jet City Woman’ a long time back, and also ‘More Bodies will Fall’ recently and enjoyed his writing. Though I know he also lives in CR Park I was hesitant to contact him as I am a bit shy by nature and did not want to disturb the writer. 

 

Just as I thought I had bought enough books and planned to leave it began to rain lightly and hurried home just in time for a sumptuous lunch of mutton curry and bagara rice that my mother had cooked for us. I was pleased that I could see my mother after nearly six months, bought books at the Mahila Haat on Sunday, got a pair of jeans stitched at Mohan Singh Place, and also meet my ex-boss.