The Sunday Haul (on 04-03-2018)

If anyone had wanted proof that summer had already come to Hyderabad he would have got it last Sunday. Out at Abids in the morning around eleven it already felt uncomfortably warm. It was going to be a hot day I knew so I was prepared. I had a cap on and had also brought along a bottle of water. But there was no one to share it with since none of my friends turned up. I browsed the titles laid out on the pavements all alone. By the end of two hours I had a haul of five books including a cookbook.

I guess it was ‘Dark Star Safari’ by Paul Theroux that roused my interest in Africa that I wanted to visit and see the vast continent for myself. Chinua Achebe’s ‘Things Fall Apart’ further deepened the hunger to know more. Then came ‘Cry, the Beloved Country’ by Alan Paton and I was captivated by Africa. I still am and if anyone asks me if there’s any place I want to visit first and last I would say one of the African countries, preferably Nigeria-Achebe country. Anyway, since it looks like I would have to settle for finding more of my Africa in Abids I love to let others know about the great African writers and their books. My first find at Abids last Sunday was another copy of ‘Cry, the Beloved Country’ by Alan Paton that had a cover very different from the usual ones I had seen earlier. It was a good copy and I couldn’t help buying it. I got it for just thirty rupees.

After finding ‘Cry, the Beloved Country’ by Alan Paton I sat in the café alone and leafed through it. I read the interesting story behind the writing and publication of this classic. I had read the tale earlier in his autobiography ‘Towards the Mountain’ that I was lucky enough to find. This edition had a foreword by the publisher, Charles Scribner Jr.

The next find was shortly after I came out of the café. I saw a copy of ‘Trust Me’ by John Updike. It was a collection of short stories and since I haven’t read many short stories by Updike I picked it up. These are the 22 stories in this collection: Trust Me; Killing; Still of Some Use; The City; The Lovely Troubled Daughters of Our Old Crowd; Unstuck; A Constellation of Events; Death of Distant Friends; Pygmalion; More Stately Mansions; Learn a Trade; The Ideal Village; One More Interview; The Other; Slippage; Poker Night; Made in Heaven; Getting into the Set; The Wallet; Leaf Season; Beautiful Husbands; the Other Woman.

Many a time I’ve picked up books by unknown authors that turned out to be either good reads or books that’s been made into movies. Last Sunday I spotted a book that I had a hunch could be a good read. It was a copy of ‘Under a Raging Sky’ by Daniel Carney and picked it up to take a closer look. I read the movies ‘Wild Geese’ and ‘Wild Geese II’ were based on the novels of Daniel Carney. That was enough to make me buy ‘Under a Raging Sky’ and I got it for thirty rupees only. I hope to find more of his books in the future.

The next find was a great title. I found a copy of ‘Bhava’ by UR Ananthamurthy. I have a copy of ‘Samskara’ that I haven’t yet read but in January at the Hyderabad Literary Festival I had watched the movie ‘Ghatashraddha’ based on UR Anantamurthy’s work. The copy I found seemed to have been discarded by some library whose stamp on one of the pages was smudged. I got this copy for fifty rupees
The last find was a hefty volume. It was ‘Chef's Vegetarian Favorites from the Taj' 2006 of the Taj Group, all of five hundred pages containing recipes of vegetarian dishes from the many hotels of the Taj group in India and also in other countries. I bought this tome for a hundred rupees.