It had rained quite heavily some days last week and though there was no forecast of rains on Sunday morning in Hyderabad it looked like it would rain looking at the dark clouds, but it didn’t, luckily for me. I took the city bus to reach Abids which is the best way to see the city, the people on the streets, and feel glad that I live in a city where you can buy books cheap from the pavements on a Sunday. I got down near the LB Stadium and walked down to the Blue Sea café to have chai and chota samosa. After that refreshing chai I walked down to the Abids lanes where all the books were waiting.
The first title I found was a book I had seen earlier but hadn’t seen again for a long time. Last Sunday I spotted a copy of ‘The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order’ by Samuel P. Huntington. Of late I have become very interested in world politics and what’s happening in the world, especially theories about the developments. This book looked like it would give me a perspective and since I had also read about this book in other books I bought it. I paid eighty rupees for it.
The next find was something similar to what I had picked up earlier. I like John Pilger’s journalism and have been lucky to find a copy of ‘A Secret Country’ in Bengaluru last year. I also found a copy of ‘Distant Voices’. I wanted to read all his books but I don’t often find them in Abids or the second hand book stores in Hyderabad. However, last Sunday when I saw a copy of ‘The New Rulers of the World’ by John Pilger I was excited. I got it for a hundred and fifty rupees.
In a heap of books being sold for fifty rupees each I found a copy of ‘A Start in Life’ by Anita Brookner whose ‘Hotel du Lac’ I’ve been trying to find since a long time. I don’t know when I will find it but finding ‘A Start in Life’ gave me hope that one day soon I will find ‘Hotel du Lac’ at Abids. I hope the day comes soon.
Just the other Sunday last month I had found a nice copy of ‘The Apprentice’ by Arun Joshi, my favorite writer. It was one of the old editions and I was glad I found it though I already have a few copies of the same title. I also have a couple of copies of ‘The Strange Case of Billy Biswas’ by Arun Joshi but when I saw another copy that looked like it belonged to some kind of circulating library looking at the way it was bound. I got it for fifty rupees.
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