The Sunday Haul (on 15-4-2018)

Sometime last month I had finished reading ‘The Book Hunters of Katpadi’ by Pradeep Sebastian that was in the library at the Institute where I am currently posted. One of the main characters in it mentions a list of Indian titles published by Jaico, Hind Pocket books in the forties- sixties that she is searching for relentlessly. I did not recollect the titles when I stumbled across a handful of Indian titles by Hind Pocket books at Chikkadpally last Sunday on the way back from Abids. I had never before seen the titles in such good condition. I had come across umpteen copies of ‘The Coffer Dams’ by Kamala Markandaya, and also ‘The Lalru Murders’ by Mangat Rai but hadn’t thought of buying them because of their condition. But last Sunday I found very good copies of ‘The Coffer Dams’ by Kamala Markandaya, ‘The Lalru Murders’ by EN Mangat Rai, and also a beautiful copy of ‘The Spy in Amber’ by Manohar Malgonkar that were published in the sixties. They were almost like new and I was surprised they were still in such a good condition even after nearly sixty years. I got these three titles for thirty each and a copy of ‘The Serpent and the Rope’ by Raja Rao, another old edition but not in such a good condition, for forty rupees.

Yesterday I looked up ‘The Book Hunters of Katpadi’ by Pradeep Sebastian but was disappointed that not one title I had found at Abids was mentioned. However, I was terribly pleased that I had the sense to pick up these beautiful copies. I am not really interested them in selling them but I want to retain them with myself and show them off. Quite surprisingly, while ‘The Serpent and the Rope’ by Raja Rao is a 1968 edition, ‘The Lalru Murders’ by E.N. Mangat Rai is a 1973 edition while the copies of ‘Spy in Amber’ by Manohar Malgonkar and ‘The Coffer Dams’ by Kamala Markandaya do not carry any year of publication. I was surprised to read that ‘Spy in Amber’ by Manohar Malgonkar was rendered into a novel by Sunita Malgonkar, his daughter, from the screenplay written by Manohar Malgonkar.

I had read about ‘Flow’ by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and also remember jotting the title down in a notebook long back. Last Sunday I found a copy of this title at Chikkadpally that I bought for hundred rupees. Before that, at Abids, I had found a copy of ‘Cooking the Punjabi Way’ by Aroona Reejhsinghani that I got for twenty rupees.