The Sunday Haul

The festival season is upon us which means shopping, shopping, shopping for many. This shopping wave displaces the second hand book sellers at Abids because the regular stores do not close on Sundays during this festival season. Luckily, last Sunday though a few stores were open many of the second hand book sellers at Abids were at their usual places. Once again, I was alone and managed to find two books, both which I already had copies of.
Of course, not content with the three books I bought in the middle of the week, on Saturday once again dropped in at a second hand book store and picked up another book. It was a nice copy of ‘Two Faces of Eve’ by Amrita Pritam. I am both ashamed and also embarrassed to say that though I have read numerous articles about Amrita Pritam, especially last month, I haven’t read anything by her all these years. One reason could be that I couldn’t find a single title of Amrita Pritam till last Saturday when I spotted ‘Two Faces of Eve’ that was one of those 70’s editions that I have come to love. I got it for seventy rupees that I thought was far too less.

Anyway, not very long ago I had found a nice hardcover copy of ‘The Other Side of Me’ by Sidney Sheldon. It was a memoir, and it was by a popular writer which was something I simply cannot resist buying. I have so many memoirs by writers that I have a fair idea of what to write in my own memoir were I to become a writer. I am waiting. Though I do not give away some titles so easily there was someone I know who is such a major fan of Sidney Sheldon that every time we meet (which is about once a month) he tells me he has re-read some title or the other by Sidney Sheldon and we’ve been meeting since more than a decade. Last time we met he told me he had read ‘The Other Side of Midnight’ fifteen times. So I thought he was the right person to give ‘The Other Side of Me’ to since he too writes.

After I gave away that copy of ‘The Other Side of Me’ by Sidney Sheldon to my friend once or twice I wondered if had done the right thing because I too had read it and found it to be very absorbing account. But then last Sunday I found another copy of the same title but in a far better condition than the first copy I had found, which, if I remember correctly, had moisture stains on some pages. This memoir is as racy as the novels Sidney Sheldon writes.

The second book that I bought on Sunday was the outcome of a casual exchange I had with a seller. Usually, on spotting me he wishes me and I move on to look at the books he has displayed and move on to the next seller. Last Sunday I happened to ask him how he was and how business was whereupon he asked me to look at a new collection he had on a shelf in a voice that told me business was dull. I wanted him to cheer up and so bought a copy of ‘My Dateless Diary’ by RK Narayan that I had read ages ago. But I had to pay a price, a steep one, for my casual query about the seller’s business. I had to shell out a hundred rupees for it when I could have got a similar copy at a different seller for half the money.