The Hyderabad Book Fair Haul- Day 5

On all the four days I have been to the Book Fair I haven’t even looked at a regular book stall since there were too many second hand book stalls I wanted to check out. But on my fifth visit to the Book Fair I decided to check out a stall for something I’ve been telling myself I would do since a long, long time. Hindi was my second language at school so it means I can read and write in Hindi. But I have never read anything in Hindi since passing out of school. I loved all the stories and poems I read in the text books in school. I have always wanted to read a Hindi novel since it makes no sense knowing a language pretty well and not reading good books in that language. It seemed pretty dumb to me so I promised myself I would read a classic novel in Hindi. I made this promise about four or five years ago and on my fifth visit to the book fair I came closer to keeping this promise. I saw the stall of Milind Prakashan and looked around. I had written down a few titles and a few authors I wanted to find at the book fair and one of them was ‘Gunahon ka Devta’ by Dharam Vir Bharti. I found a nice copy of ‘Gunahon ka Devta’ by Dharam Vir Bharti and picked it up. I hope to start reading it someday soon.

In the book stall where there was as a heap of books selling three for hundred rupees I looked for good titles. Ever since I’ve read ‘The Gathering’ by Anne Enright I have been a huge fan of her writing. Sometime back I had found a copy of ‘The Pleasures of Eliza Lynch’ and I looked forward to reading other Anne Enright titles. Only last month I found a copy of 'The Green Road' too but I haven't yet started reading it. At one of the second hand book stalls I found a copy of ‘The Forgotten Waltz’ by Anne Enright and picked it up as the first of the set of three books I could buy for hundred rupees.

Another writer I enjoyed reading is William Trevor. I already have a copy of ‘Love and Summer’ by William Trevor but when I saw another copy of the same title I picked it up as the second book of the set. I want to give it to anyone who asks me to recommend a good book to read. I couldn’t find a third book to make up the set of three so I decided to buy a different book. I think it was my friend Jai who told me that Carl Muller’s books were funny. I saw a copy of ‘The Jam Fruit Tree’ by Carl Muller and bought it thinking of what Jai had told me. I hope I enjoy reading it.