A haul of more than two books at the Abids book bazaar on Sundays make me glad as well as nervous. I feel glad because I have added more books to be read and nervous because there isn’t much space in my bookshelves for more books. Last Sunday I ended up with another big haul of seven books, of which one was a gift from my friend Jai. I hadn’t been to Abids the previous Sunday when it seems Jai had come along with the gift to give it to me. Due to some work at the Institute I wasn’t able to make it to Abids on that day. So Jai said he would come this Sunday to give me the book but wouldn’t tell me the title. The suspense of what Jai had brought for me made me very eager to go to Abids last Sunday. It was another bright and slightly warm morning when I landed up at Abids.
The first haul consisted of two cookbooks, both hardcover copies. The first one was ‘Khajana of Healthy Tasty Recipes’ by Sanjeev Kapoor and the second cookbook was ‘Step-by-Step Indian Cookery’ by Khalid Aziz. Both were in extremely good condition and I got them from my favourite bookseller at Abids for just a hundred rupees.
With the same seller I spotted Geoff Dyer’s ‘Yoga for People Who Can’t be Bothered to Do It’’ that I got for fifty rupees. The price felt a bit high but the copy, a discard of the British Library, was in a good condition. It was a non-fiction title and had ‘Travel/Memoir’ at the back.
Then I met my friends, Uma and Jai, and we sat in the café for chai. Jai took out a book and handed it to me. It was a copy of ‘The Good Muslim of Jackson Heights’ by Jaysinh Birjepatil. I was thrilled that I had another title by an author I had found only the other day. The Sunday before last I had found Jaysinh Birjepatil’s ‘Chinnery’s Hotel’ after finding it in a list of books that Khushwant Singh put in his book ‘Khushwantnama’
On a visit to the Best Book store in Lakdikapul sometime during this month I had seen a copy of ‘I Take this Woman’ by Rajinder Singh Bedi. A Penguin title, the copy was in a good condition but the price was a hundred rupees which prevented me from buying it though I wanted to buy it. I knew it was a good book but since I had already bought two books I decided I would buy it on my next visit. However, last Sunday I spotted this title in a heap of books selling for just twenty rupees. I was glad I did not buy the copy I had seen at the bookstore because the copy I saw at Abids was not only very cheap but it was the original edition published by Orient Paperbacks in 1967. ‘I Take This Woman’ is the English version of ‘Ek Chadar Maili Si’, a Punjabi novel that won the Sahitya Akademi Award for Rajinder Singh Bedi. Khushwant Singh translated it from Punjabi into English as it says on the cover.
The next title in the haul was a wonderful find. There are a few sellers in Abids who are very knowledgeable about authors and the titles and they don’t sell their books for less than what they think the title is worth. It is futile to bargain with such sellers and one has to buy the book at their prices. On the other hand there are a couple of sellers who are absolutely ignorant of the books they sell. These sellers usually have a fixed price, often very low, for all the books with them. There’s one such seller who sometimes sells many books for twenty rupees. Last Sunday I got a copy of ‘Dear Life’ by Alice Munro from one such seller for only twenty rupees. It was an unbelievable find and I was quite thrilled to find this collection of short stories by one of the greatest master of the short story. I didn’t mind that the cover on the front had a bit missing at the top. This collection of fourteen stories has these stories:
To Reach Japan; Amundsen; Leaving Maverley; Gravel; Haven; Pride; Corrie; Train; In Sight of the Lake; Dolly; The Eye; Night; Voices; and Dear Life, the title story.
The last find was another screenwriting title- ‘How to Write a Selling Screenplay’ by Christopher Keane. Books on screenwriting are something I cannot resist buying and this has meant that I have more than a dozen titles on screenwriting. However, I haven’t finished the script I have been working on since heaven knows when. The copy I found was one that someone had got bound nicely. I got this lovely copy for a hundred rupees.
So that was the haul last Sunday at Abids. With this haul the total number of books I bought this year so far 173. There’s still December left and the Hyderabad Book Fair which means that the total tally could touch 200 books or more.
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