The Sunday Haul (on 16-09-2019)

Normally I say a little prayer in my heart before setting out for Abids to look for books at the famed Sunday book market that I’d find some wonderful books but sometimes, very rarely, I say the opposite prayer. I pray that I don’t find any book worth buying though I could have skipped going to Abids when that mood takes over but I don’t because going to Abids on Sunday mornings has become such a habit that if I stay even a minute longer at home after eleven on Sunday that I get kicked out. Last Sunday turned out to be one such day when I wished and prayed that I wouldn’t find anything worth buying.

The prayer almost came true and I returned from Abids without buying a single book but on the way home I saw something that changed everything. At one of the sellers in Chikkadpally I spotted a beautiful, almost new copy of ‘The Gene’ by Siddhartha Mukherjee and I almost bought it. But I realized I already have it and had also read it so I came home without buying it. Later in the evening, mind clear after the afternoon tea, I remembered that I had read ‘The Gene’ in the library at the Institute and that I do not have the copy of the book at home since I hadn’t bought it. That was enough to make me jump on my two-wheeler and rush to Chikkadpally silently praying that no one had bought the book I now desperately wanted to own.

I almost collapsed with relief when I saw the copy of ‘The Gene’ by Siddhartha Mukherjee at the same place where I had seen it in the morning. It was a hardcover copy with the jacket intact and in almost new condition. I got it at one third of the cover price.