The Sunday Haul

The Sunday before last I had to leave for Delhi on a week-long visit. My flight was in the afternoon so I had to pack and get stuff from outside so I did not go to Abids to look for books. Another reason was it was too hot and I did not want to risk it before leaving the town. Actually, Delhi was hotter than Hyderabad though I managed to go out in the evenings and check out two places where I pick up books whenever I am in Delhi. In the previous post I had written about the three books I found in Delhi. I had actually planned to stay back in Delhi to visit the Darya Ganj book market on Sunday but it was so hot I chose to come back and do the same at Abids.

Though I must own around two hundred titles related to the writing craft I do not seem to have made any significant progress in sharpening my writing skills. I cannot let go of any book related to writing whether it is a text book or otherwise so when I spotted a copy of ‘The St Martin’s Guide to Writing’ by Rise B. Axelrod and Charles R. Cooper. I did not hesitate when the seller quoted a steep price for it and bought it. I believe there’s a lot I have to learn about writing and there’s no book I do not want to read to learn whatever it offers. Writing is tough but learning to write is expensive for the likes of me.

The second book I found was one that I decided to buy just for the sake of its striking cover alone the moment I spotted it. It was a beautiful and almost new copy of ‘God’s Own Land’ by Shaukat Siddiqi, a title and an author I had not heard or read about before. The sub title of ‘God’s Own Land’ was ‘A Novel of Pakistan’ that got me very interested in it. It turned to have been published by UNESCO in 1991 and and later in 1993 by Rupa & Co. I read on the back cover that the author Shaukat Siddiqi was considered as one of the most talented of Urdu writers. What was more interesting was that it was also written that the book had been serialized on Pakistan television. It was translated into English by David J Matthews. I got this wonderful book for just thirty rupees.

Sometime back in 2017 I had found a copy of ‘The Narrow Road to the Deep North’ by Richard Flanagan and the copy I found did not have a cover. Last Sunday at Chikkadpally I spotted a nice copy of the same title with cover page intact. I decided to buy it thinking I would give away the other copy without the cover to someone who would enjoy reading it. I got this copy with the cover for fifty rupees whereas I had paid seventy rupees for the copy without the cover.

Then with another seller at a corner of the RTC X Roads junction I found a copy of ‘Americanaah’ by Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie in a heap of books selling for only thirty rupees.