The Holi/World Book Day Haul

Last Thursday happened to be a holiday for us blokes in the Telangana government because it was Holi. It also happened to be World Book Day something which I did not bother very greatly since I felt that for me every day was a book day. Since I was at home due to the holiday I decided to do two book related things:- Read a book, buy a book.

One of the couple of things I wanted to do in 2018 was to prepare a list of titles I have to read and begin reading them one by one. One of the titles in this ‘to read’ list is ‘The Great Gatsby’ by F. Scott Fitzgerald that pickedup at Abids the previous Sunday. I decided to begin reading it and right after breakfast I opened it and plunged into the world of Gatsby. I managed to read it until the last page reading it well past my usual sleeping time and finally finished it at eleven in the night.

Since buying a book was the second goal of the day I decided the Best Book Centre secondhand store at Lakdi ka Pul would be a nice place to hunt. I still regret not having bought the copy of Ngugu wa Thiong’O’s ‘Matigari’ that I had seen a couple of years ago at another second-hand bookstore. I had never heard of Ngugi and hand no idea who he was. Last month Ngugi mentioned ‘Matigari’ in wonderful talk he gave during his visit to Hyderabad. I still find it unbelievable that I had seen him in person. Though I had managed to get his signature on my copies of ‘Petals of Blood’ and ‘Dreams in a Time of War’ I feel like kicking myself for not getting photographed with him.

Anyway, at the Best Book Centre store I saw a nice copy of ‘Matigari’ on one of the shelves and I grabbed it. But it did not come cheap since I had to pay a hundred and eighty rupees for it. Whatever, I had the quiet satisfaction of celebrating ‘World Book Day’ for the first time in my life in a befitting manner by reading a book and also buying one.