The Sunday Haul (on 1-7-2018)

The trip to Nainital kept me away from Abids for two consecutive Sundays so I was more than eager to return to my familiar Sunday morning haunts. But I found my enthusiasm doused by the over action of the traffic policemen who did not allow anything to be set up on the pavements. As a result there weren’t many books on the pavements at Abids last Sunday. It was only in the few lanes and nooks that the book sellers could safely spread their wares on the pavements. It was at one such seller in a lane that I came across a brand new book that was small in size as well as compact. It was a copy of ‘College’ by Saikat Majumdar that I got for just thirty rupees.

Then in another pile of books selling for twenty rupees I found two crime fiction titles. I had been seeing books by Alan Williams since a long time and though the covers looked like there could be a good novel inside somehow I did not buy them. But last Sunday when I saw ‘The Purity Leagues’ by Alan Williams I picked it up along with ‘False Flags’ by Noel Hynd.

The best of the Sunday haul was at Chikkadpally on the way home from Abids. With each title by an Indian writer that I read my interest in Indian literature especially Indian English literature grows. I have a few titles about Indian literature but nothing that gives me a full picture. I wasn’t really looking for something that would give a full picture of Indian Literature in English since I wasn’t aware there was anything like that. So when I saw ‘An Illustrated History of Indian Literature in English’ edited by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra with a seller at Chikkadpally I was dumbstruck. This title I found quite by chance is a real treasure though I had to shell out two hundred rupees for it. There is so much interesting in this book, about a page on Arun Joshi, that ‘All About Mr Hatterr preceded All About H.Hatterr’ and plenty of illustrations and photographs. It is filled with so much about Indian English writers that it needs a separate post. Along with this title I found the classic ‘Notes of a Native Son’ by James Baldwin that the seller threw in for free with ‘An Ilustrated History…’ !